After being one of the biggest strengths of the team, Kentucky football’s defense has significantly regressed in the past two weeks.
“We talked about coming out of that Ole Miss game, how they played, they set a bar and a standard for what this defense should be,” Defensive Coordinator Brad White said. “It doesn’t matter who’s in and who’s not in — or who’s hurt — coaches included, we have got to play to that level. There is no other option.”
While the offense has ranked near the bottom in the majority of categories, the defense had been near the top basically all season.
Coming into the Florida game, the Wildcats ranked third in the SEC when it came to yards allowed per game with 251.5 and fourth in the SEC with just 14.5 points per game.
Florida came into the game short handed as both its starting quarterback and running back were out for the game.
This proved to be irrelevant, however, as true freshman DJ Lagway threw for 259 yards on just seven completions. It was good for 37 yards per completion. Also, the Gators had three receivers finish the game with 40+ receiving yards.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in any secondary I’ve been a part of,” Head Coach Mark Stoops said about the chunk plays. “I know the strength of his arm and the speed they have at wideouts. I think what added to that was the run game.”
On top of the secondary collapse, the defense also allowed true freshman Jaden Baugh to rush for 106 yards and five touchdowns.
This bumped up the yards allowed per game to 283.6 and points allowed per game to 19.3, which dropped the defense to fourth and eighth in the conference respectively.
While optimists were hoping for some adjustments to be made against Auburn, the regression furthered even more into a tailspin as the defense allowed Jarquez Hunter to rush for 278 yards and two touchdowns.
“They ran it down our throat,” White said. “Obviously we are not executing at a high enough level right now.”
Hunter’s performance set a record for the most rush yards by an opposing player inside Commonwealth Stadium/Kroger Field.
The troublesome stats continue to show as these two games are the first time Kentucky has allowed at least 476 yards of total offense since Nov. 18th and 25th of 2017.
Looking at the conference numbers following the two games, Kentucky has fallen to seventh in the SEC with 310.4 yards allowed per game and 10th in the conference with 19.9 yards allowed per game.
It’s now clearer than ever that what was once something the Wildcats could lean on, is now a unit desperately searching for answers.
“We just got to do our job and execute, man,” JQ Hardaway said. “I feel like if everybody do their job, everybody do what coach asks us to do, we’d be in a pretty good position, but you try to do your own things, then things happen.”
The going does not get easier for the defense as its next task will be to stop No. 7 Tennessee on the road on Saturday, Nov. 3, with kickoff scheduled for 7:45 p.m. ET.
