By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Kentucky’s hopes of reaching the postseason for the ninth straight season hinge on winning three of the last four games, including Saturday’s contest at No. 7 Tennessee.
The Wildcats (3-5, 1-5 Southeastern Conference) have lost three in a row, including a 24-10 decision to Auburn last week, the team’s 10th loss in the past 12 conference encounters. Kentucky closes out the SEC schedule at Texas on Nov. 23.
Although struggling, Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said the team’s mental approach hasn’t changed going into the last month of the regular season and added that each week is like starting over and turning the page on the previous week.
“It’s always been a 1-0 mentality,” he said. “As hard as that can be, (we must) keep the focus and stay within the confines of what we’ve got to get done, and a lot of times, that’s easier said than done.”
The Wildcats have yet to score more than 20 points in six league games this season. The big question mark is whether the Wildcats will start Brock Vandagriff or give Rutgers transfer Gavin Wimsatt, who played most of the second half in last week’s loss to the Tigers, a chance in the pocket.
Coach Mark Stoops said the Wildcats are taking a wait-and-see approach going ahead of Saturday’s contest against the Volunteers in Knoxville, adding that he doesn’t “necessarily need to give that information away right away” when it comes to the team’s starting signal caller.
He did say, however, Vandagriff hasn’t changed his pregame routine this week.
“Brock has been fine,” Stoops said. “Brock really doesn’t ever change his demeanor too much. He pretty much always puts his head down, goes to work, and does the best he can.”
Regardless of who will be the starter, Hamdan said the Wildcats need to seek consistency on offense and finish drives when in the red zone.
“There’s always something there. Are you just going to be able to line up and run it in? You’re not,” Hamdan said. “We’ve got to change that focus a little bit, throw the ball even more when we’re down in those situations.
“I’ve got to do a good job. It starts with me and putting the best scheme together to finish those drives because that’s obviously been a huge frustration for us this entire year.”
Tennessee (6-1, 3-1) is coming off a bye week following a 24-17 loss to Alabama two weeks ago. Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White said the team’s improvement starts with “playing better” instead of pinpointing Tennessee.
“Regardless of the team that we’re playing on Saturday, we have to play better,” White said. “We have to be efficient in terms of how we play defense. We can’t have a couple of good plays then we give up an explosive. We’ve got to stay the course.”
Gametracker: Kentucky at Tennessee, 7:45 p.m., Saturday. TV/Radio: SECN, UK Radio Network.