By Cody Porter

As the second half of UK’s game against LSU was just moments from starting, UK junior quarterback Morgan Newton was finding out that he wouldn’t be.

Instead it was freshman quarterback Maxwell Smith who came in to lead the Cats.

Before the change was made, Newton entered the half with his team trailing LSU 14-0. He had completed only two of his 11 attempted passes for 12 yards, all on one reception by La’Rod King.

Smith’s gig was short lived, however, as Newton returned during the 4th quarter.

“We just thought we needed a spark and wanted to give Morgan a chance to sit back and watch the game from a distance,” Phillips said.

Rest assured, it seemed as if Phillips was trying to bring that spark about in the middle of a rainstorm.

Smith’s performance consisted of one completion on five attempts for only nine yards while appearing to be a piece of fresh meat for the Tigers on a couple of blitzes during the 3rd quarter. One of those scary encounters led to a fumble and a Tiger touchdown.

Regardless of if Phillips decided to go about this change due to the ever-growing pressure from the fan base, it was the wrong choice at the wrong time.

Entering the game, UK was nothing but an underdog. Expectations were low and only positives could have come from the match-up with the nations No. 1 team in a hostile environment.

Now, things could have drastically taken a turn for the worse I do believe.

Newton, who has started each game this season, has worked well with what he has had. His help, which has been minimal, has for much of the season only come in the form of La’Rod King.

Rather than possibly helping Newton or even Smith, the Cats now have a quarterback whose confidence they may have damaged.

Drops, drops and more drops have been the end result of many of his passes. Some blame that on coaching and others on skill, nevertheless it doesn’t help Newton move the ball down the field.

Newton’s urgency to make plays has resulted in increased quarterback runs this season. Sometimes it has been successful and at other moments it has ended with a loss of significant yardage.

Another aspect of Newton’s troubles has come from the five guys on the offensive line that are supposed to protect him and have helped lead to some of those attempted scrambles by Newton.

At this point in the season Newton has been sacked 17 times by the opposing team. If Smith is included, the UK offensive line has given up 21 total sacks. That total ties Akron for 118th, of 120 possible spots in the NCAA football bowl subdivision.

Understandably, injuries hampered the performance of the line at the beginning of the season forcing some inexperienced players to have to fill the void of veterans Billy Joe Murphy and Matt Smith, but now that they are getting back to form, the results have yet to change.

Compared to the Cats’ other opponents, the South Carolina defense may fall a tier below the LSU Tigers so the pressure is yet to let up.

If ever there were a time for Joker Phillips and offensive coordinator Randy Sanders to help build not only the confidence of Newton, but the team as a whole, then it is this coming Saturday.

The Cats are an inferior team compared to many of their SEC foes. While fans may not be able to embrace that, Phillips needs to right his ship with his signal-caller while UK works through these growing pains.