Unless Kentucky managed to upset Florida, this game was not going to define the UK season.  What it WAS going to do is give us a truer measurement of the Cats than we got in the first three games.  We know now that comparisons to the 2007 offensive unit were premature.  It's a much better offense than we've seen the last two years and one that still has plenty of upside left.  Mike Hartline made some bad throws in the first half but he showed me something with his play in the second half.  His TD throw to Chris Matthews was one of his best of the season and he never came close to throwing another pick after the intermission.  Had I been a fan in the stands at halftime, I would have been calling for Morgan Newton to get a chance, but Hartline rallied and that could be something he and his offensive unit can build on for the remaining 2/3rds of the season.  The Cats may not face any defenses this good--particularly in the secondary.

 

Defensively, Kentucky has issues.  This program's talent level has come a long way but it's not yet to the point where one side of the ball can lose six starters (three of whom made it to the NFL) and not suffer a significant regression (look at the offensive side of the ball from 2007 to 2008).  Several times this summer and fall, Joker Phillips has talked about wanting to make the opponent "keep snapping the ball," meaning they want to minimize big plays and try to then force the opponent to make a mistake or two before reaching the endzone.  That strategy didn't work against Florida.  Going into the Florida game, UK ranked 13th nationally in tackles-for-loss with 24 TFL's for 108 yards in losses.  Against the Gators, the Kentucky defense managed only 3 TFL's for a total of 8 negative yards.  Too often, Florida just spread the field with 5 wideouts and then found the one matched up with the slowest Wildcat and threw it there while Brantley had time to survey the entire field.  In that situation, Kentucky may need to risk the big play for the tradeoff of putting the opposing QB under more pressure.

 

Kentucky has to improve on defense but the reality is that the Cats are going to probably have to win a shootout to prevail against most of the teams left on their schedule this year.  The good news is that there's now enough talent on the offensive side of the ball to do that.  This game against Florida provided a great opportunity, but the games that will define this season are coming over the next 5 weeks.

v. Louisville
September 2 / 3:30pm eastern
listen on UK-IMG Sports Network
See full schedule