Column: New mistakes but same old result for Cats in ‘tough’ loss to Gamecocks

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Week by week, year by year, the same words can describe how UK football feels.

Heartbreaking. Tough. Disappointed.

After losing 28-26 to No. 25 South Carolina on Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium, those same words were repeated. Heartbreaking. Tough. Disappointed.

UK head coach Rich Brooks said them. Backup-turned-starting-quarterback Will Fidler said them. If you had asked junior quarterback Mike Hartline, injured on the opening drive of the third quarter and likely to miss at least next week’s game, you probably would have heard those same words.

Heartbreaking. Tough. Disappointed.

Because that’s exactly what Saturday’s loss was. Despite prior beliefs about Hartline, it’s tough to see someone who was starting to put the pieces together get injured. It’s heartbreaking to watch a team playing without its top three corners midway through the game continue to hang in there. Being disappointed in some of the mistakes — both in penalties and play-calling — UK committed is natural.

“We were in position to win this game,” Brooks said. “This was one of those wins we needed pretty badly and we failed to get it.”

The penalty that brought back sophomore Randall Cobb’s big end-around was one of many mistakes limiting the Cats. A fake field goal Brooks tried was another.

“Dumb call by me,” Brooks said. “ … We should have checked out of it, but we didn’t.”

A lot of people can watch the game, look at the box score and the injury report and say the Cats were lucky to be within a two-point conversion of sending the game into overtime with even the possibility of winning it.

They’ll see the injuries, the way the Cats responded and the fact that by the end of the game, a true freshman was UK’s No. 1 cornerback and say “Hey, we’ll take the result.”

Because that’s what UK always does. They challenge South Carolina and play them closely every year. Every year they lose. It’s always something.

But usually, it’s because UK always causes that something. Sure, not having Hartline hurt, but was it the difference in the game? Not when UK showed it could still march down the field and score without him.

“You don’t want your starting quarterback down, but someone else is there to fill in,” junior tailback Derrick Locke said. “No excuses.”

That may be a good motto for UK to adopt — “No excuses.” Up at halftime, on the road and playing well, there are no excuses for losing by two points. Not when two or three good drives stalled. Mistakes turned first downs into third-and-longs. And when faking a field goal, UK tried to be fancier than needed.

So now the Cats get to limp back to Lexington, thin at cornerback and with a coaching headache trying to decide what to do at quarterback. Brooks said Hartline isn’t likely to play at Auburn.

“Everybody was hoping and wishing for a change,” UK head coach of the offense Joker Phillips said. “Well, we got a change. We can’t cancel the season though.”

Phillips is right. UK has to play on, even in the tough Southeastern Conference. A three-game losing streak and a winless conference streak could turn into four straight losses.

“We keep doing this, we’re going to keep losing,” Locke said. “I hope everyone is tired of losing. I am.”

If the Cats want to end the heartbreaking, tough losses they’ll have to cut out the mistakes completely. If they can’t, just change the location every week, but not the results in the win/loss column.

That will stay the same: Disappointing.

Kenny Colston is a journalism senior. E-mail kcolston@kykernel.com.