As Kentucky football gets into the home stretch of the season, there have not been many positives to take away from the undeniably disappointing season.
Despite that, one potential bright spot could have emerged in the Cats’ loss inside Neyland Stadium for the optimists as Ja’Mori Maclin’s first touchdown catch has the potential to ignite the transfer to become a much-needed threat for Kentucky football’s offense after a slow start to the season.
“It’s all about perspective and just trusting God’s timing,” Maclin said. “The season has not been as good as I wanted it to be, but at the end of the day, I just continue to work hard. My teammates trust me and, when the time comes, I just gotta make those plays.”
Maclin arrived in Lexington from North Texas through the transfer portal after spending two seasons with the Mean Green. Before that, Maclin transferred from Missouri, which he committed to out of high school.
Maclin has ties not only to the Tigers, but also to the NFL as his cousin, Jeremy Maclin, also went to Missouri before playing eight seasons in the pros.
Jeremy spent five seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, two with the Kansas City Chiefs and his final season with the Baltimore Ravens. In his eight seasons, Jeremy tallied 6,835 yards and 49 touchdowns.
Something that both Jeremy and his nephew have in common is that they are both deep threats as Jeremy averaged 13.3 yards per reception and Maclin was the first player in North Texas program history to average 17 yards per catch in a 1,000 receiving yard season.
Maclin really arrived in his second season with the Mean Green when he finished with 57 catches for 1,004 yards and 11 touchdowns.
The successful season caused him to jump in the transfer portal that landed him in Lexington.
Being expected to be a major player for the Wildcats, it has not quite panned out that way.
Entering the Tennessee game, Maclin had only hauled in six catches for 89 yards and no touchdowns, which also included three games with no catches.
Then, trailing by 11 with around 13:30 to go in the fourth, Gavin Wimsatt was in the game replacing an injured Brock Vandagriff and he was trying to ignite the offense.
He pulled this off by slinging a deep ball along the Kentucky sideline that Maclin hauled in one handed for a 32-yard touchdown.
The catch was made one handed because a Vols defender was holding his other arm, which made the celebration that much more exciting as Maclin was greeted by his fired up teammates after his first touchdown.
“Me and Gavin have a good connection,” Maclin said. “I had a feeling he was gonna come to me and the corner ended up having my left arm, so I couldn’t bring it through to catch it with two hands, so I just put one hand up and ended up catching it.”
Needing a two-point conversion to cut the deficit to three, the Wildcats opted to go for it and the play broke down, which caused Wimsatt to scramble away before he fired a laser to Maclin, who made an adjustment and secured the catch at his hip for a successful conversion.
While Maclin might not have been having the season he wanted, this critical catch may be the domino that falls his way to finish out this season strong and possibly start next season as a serious threat for the Cats.
”When you have an opportunity to throw him a competitive ball, he has an opportunity to come down with it a lot, that’s one of his strengths,” Head Coach Mark Stoops said. “When he got in a one-on-one with a 50/50 ball, he came down with two in a row and I think we’d all like to see more opportunities follow him that way.”
Kentucky returns to action following its second bye week on Saturday, Nov. 16, when it will take on Murray State at home with kickoff scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET.
