Kentucky 24, Tennessee 30 (OT) -- Postmortem

i know we were winning at half, but with the first TO, there was a 14 point swing – if we drive and score, we are up 21-7, but instead, ut drives and it is 14-14. i guess i thought we should have been leading by more at half but the fact that we were not was a bit disconcerting.

given all you said – and reviewing the last series in regulation again – i really do not have a problem with the play calling. would have liked to see more locke but without conner, you just have to take some things out of your play book.

also – i think it was globe – said brooks on radio made some comment about not practing the wildcat formation for 2 minute drill. guess that would account for the play calling.

anyway, if not for the nuisance that will not be named, this season was very good – all things considered. its that nuisance that just colors my judgement….

i thought 7-5 would require a win over UT -

my gut is music city at best (but shreveport not out of the question). 4 bowls in a row is nice, but hopefully we will move up a notch next year. the extra month of practice will do our freshmen good.

finally, we covered pretty good for losing jarmon – but got to think we would have given up less yards up the middle if he had been around….

started on Tennessee’s 37 yard line.

On four plays from scrimmage, Randall Cobb ran the ball from the 37 yard line down to the 10 yard line.

Regardless of anyone’s opinion of Cobb’s “overall game”, or “prior turnovers”, the fact remains that on that final drive, with the game on the line, Cobb ran the ball from the 37 yard line down to the 10 yard line.

After reaching the 10 yard line, Randall Cobb never touched the ball again.

but he did all that without conner blocking so he had to be gassed. also, the ut defender did a great job shedding the locke block on 3rd down – if that block gets made, newton scores. not putting it on locke because he is not the one that is suppose to make the block – with conner injured, he was the one whose number was called to do it – i have seen newton get 5+ yards on that play many times….

Tough, I really think everyone played well but less disciplined than against Ga. Injuries hurt as well. I thought the defense played well in the 2nd half considering how much time they spent on the field. Wish I would have looked at the score before watching after having had to record it.

Yall when Hardesty ran that touchdown in, my heart just sank. I was pretty much even kiel during the whole game. I can for sure say when the Vols score I am jumping up and down for the first time, my heart just sank. It was hard to watch. I would have felt the same if Kentucky had won. Just a hard fought battle between two teams that have been through some major adversity this year. Tennessee has had its issues with injuries and off the field problems. Kentucky has been racked with injuries and illness. Both teams needed this win. Kentucky should be very proud of themselves. The loss of Connor was a huge loss and most likely cost them the game. Also though, Tennessee lost their punter/kicker at full strength. Its just tough. I wanted to point out that alot of yall are on Joker about not calling Cobb to the plays at the end. Cobb is not one hundred percent. The announcers even said so. You know his body had been battered all night. I think that it had a huge factor. I do question on not giving Locke the ball though. That kid is fast.

Overall,, Kentucky should be very proud of themselves and really all the SEC teams should be. I think with the exception of Florida, Alabama and Vandy-this conference is very evenly matched. YOu saw that with the beatdown of the ACC today by the SEC. I am looking forward to the bowls this year as I think we could go undefeated. The SEC had great teams. Remember too Kentucky beat a team last week that just beat the number seven team in the country on the road. Hold your heads up high Cat fans. Your guys deserve it.

Tough loss today, but the season was a success. We didn’t break the most important streak, but be did beat some nice road game streaks with our wins at UGA and at Auburn. And a 7 win season is certainly good for UK at this point.

So bummed, but trying to find a positive…

Go cats!

You hit the nail on the head:

“…it feels like a great burden to have to write this.” My feelings exactly!

Really feeling it for the Seniors… During their time here, they never beat UF or UT!

Done is done, time to move on… Time to get everyone healthy, get some good practices in, and win whichever bowl we go to!

who was allegedly “too tired” to have the ball put into his hands at the end of regulation even though he was apparently not too tired for the coaches to still have him in the game at the wide receiver position:

At the end of the game is when I’m the most hungry. I would have loved to have the ball in that situation. But I didn’t.

We fans of UK Football can jump through all the mental hoops we need to in order to accept moral victories and convince ourselves that we actually deserve the abject mediocrity that will continue to serve as the leadership of our program.

And whether we deserve him or not, I challenge even the most ardent of Joker Phillips apologists to deny this:

Randall Cobb deserves better than Joker Phillips.

I thought the loss would leave me crushed and feeling the season was a waste. Surprisingly, I don’t come close to feeling bad about the season. Sure, the loss was a tough one for the seniors and I feel for them, but the season was exciting with its ups and downs and there is still one game to go. I agree with memphiscat in that I was more upset over losing out on 2nd in the east vs an extension of the streak. This team didn’t lose 25 games to Tennessee but they did win at Auburn, at Georgia and at Vandy – a very nice feather in the cap. They are also going to their 4th bowl game in four years and have a done themselves very proud. I’m looking forward to following this team to whatever bowl they go to and to following thier progress next year.
There is and will continue to be a lot of hand wringing over play calling, depth of talent, recruiting and the like but if you follow any team there will be those questions. Pick just about any team out there and you’re going to see questions on each of these, they are not unique to the UK program. When I get upset with comments critical in any of these areas I’m comforted by the fact that at least people still care enough to pour their hearts out for the football program. That hasn’t always been the case.

I know I will sound like a whiner but i’m going to say what a lot of people have been saying about Florida, but about Tennessee. The officals are really off in their play calling. When Tennessee’s O line has 3 guys bear hugging UK’s D line that is holding. I know for the refs it’s more fun to watch the QB or running back but one guy has to watch that. The OT play for the TD the refs are ALL looking down field. The TD should have come back for holding.

Would this have gave UK the win? Maybe, maybe not, but it would have made UT win it fairly. You watch the previous plays of the last 2 UT drives where they don’t hold it’s a 1, 2, 2, 3, -2, -1 loss on the runs. They can’t do it fair. We still have a big D line even with the injuries.

I know everyone it going to blast me but the easiest fix is to make plays reviewable for penalties. If the coach saw something review it. If the flag was thrown and the coach doesn’t agree, review it. We spend enough time reviewing ball placement trival catches sometimes it can’t make it much worse.

All in all it was a good game just again UK had 2 teams to beat, the orange and black team and the white and black team.

Tru pretty much covered it. I will defend the o-line by saying it’s pretty hard to block when the d knows what’s coming every time. Misuse of Locke and not enough throws for Cobb out of the Wildcat. Plus, we need an offensive identity. You’re not going to beat good teams in the fourth quarter with the same gadget plays from the first half. The Kiffin’s don’t have much to work with this year either, but they showed in the second half they are better coaches.

Okay things went wrong for the Cats and a few things went wrong for the Vols, but when it is said and done. I am proud of the game we played and my only wish would be to avoid conventional wisdom and go for it on fourth down. Give it Cobb and go all in, losing like that in ot after a hard fought game, I do not know how long this loss wil linger, well…you know, probally till a little after the Carolina game tips off.

And we both tried to give it away with turnovers. I think we each got 10 points off, and I thought y’all were going to punch in the dagger. I didn’t realize Cobb was half-speed/Connor was hurt. That’s rough, because he was eating us alive. Hell, he was even eating us alive half-speed.

The big difference had to be adjustments at halftime. Monte somehow figured a way to slow y’all down, and your defense just started getting tired. We’ve been on the other side of that lack of depth issue (see: 42-17 loss to Ole Miss Dexter McCluster), so we know how it goes. Y’all still got some good stops in the 2nd half to keep the game close. Bend but don’t break.

That said, I think y’all really had the better of the play in the first half, and when you have a month to rest before bowls and get the running game going at full strength, it will be a sight to see.

I also really enjoyed my first visit to Commonwealth Stadium. Had a couple rude folks (one guy elbowed me in the stomach just because I had a UT sweatshirt on), but most of your fans were really great. There were some guys behind me saying not to go to a 7-11 for fear of robbery, and I told them that 7-11s were okay, just as long as they didn’t hit a Pilot. We all got a good laugh. And there were UK fans who came up and shook my hand after the game. Good experience.

P.S. Break the streak against Florida before the one against us. Neither of us could stand the Gators having the longest active winning streak. shudder

ZERO moral victory in this one.This game should have ended in regulation.This is what was on the line

2nd Place in the East
24 year long losing streak over
Possible New Year Bowl

They should have went for the win.Instead,the coaching staff played “not to lose” in Lexington.If we had lost the game on 4th down,so be it.I would defend Brooks for having a pair.

Hartline already lost his season to injury, there is no reason to add insult. He got quite enough of that throughout the season when he was actually playing, seems like we ought to lay off when he doesnt even play.

It sucks. There’s hardly more to say about it. I completely agree with most people on here about going for the win at the end of regulation. While I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud last night, I knew when we went to OT that we weren’t going to win it. We just didn’t have it in us. This was a make or break game for UK. We all knew what we were playing for and funnily enough the 24 year streak was, for once, the least important of them. God only knows how many recruits were going and realized that UK will always be a ho-hum mid pack SEC team. And after losing all the Seniors that we’re going to, next year only promises to be worst. Yes I’m pissed and yes I’m pessimistic, but I think last night might finally have been the shot to my heart that I just couldn’t handle. God knows life would be much easier without being a UK football fan, but unfortunately I just don’t think it’s in me to give up. Call me a glutton for punishment I guess. And I also think it’s funny that we keep calling this a rivalry. A rivalry requires both of the teams to be at least kind of evenly matched, and for my entire life we haven’t been. And of course I’m left to say, just wait until bball season. Thing is- UT could care less about bball, just like I’m supposed to care less about UK football…

if not all of everyone of those 25 games. Many years we were outclassed and really had no chance of winning but everytime we’ve played them where it was a toss-up, we’ve still managed to choke away a victory.

I think most will agree that this was a good year that could have been a great year. Three SEC road wins and a bowl when just a few weeks ago it didn’t look like we’d be going any where. That said, this game joins the SC and Miss St. games in losses that we should have won.

Questionable play calling, poor execution, big penalties in key situations…….this program isn’t good enough to overcome these problems against SEC teams that already have UK penciled in as a victory on their schedule.

I’ve been someone who’s always questioned Brooks as the best coach for our program but looking at the big picture, I can’t deny what he’s done for the program and feel he deserves to leave on his own terms.

That said, to me it’s insane to hand this program over to an unproven coach. Joker has done nothing in my mind to deserve being handed this job and I just don’t get why that’s apparently going to happen. If he leaves…..fine, let him prove himself as a head coach if someone would hire him but he’s certainly not proved himself as an O-coordinator.

The big loosers last night were those Seniors who’ve bled for this program and the fans of this University who were either there last night screaming their lungs out or were like us watching on TV and screaming in our family rooms.

We can pick apart every play last night but at the end of the day, UT’s beaten us for the 25th straight time and this one probably hurts worst because so much rode on this game and they were soooooooooooooooooooooo beatable.

if you had told me in summer that we would lose Jarmon, Hartline would be gone for the season after SC, Lindley would miss 4 games and not be himself when he returned, Cobb and Locke would play hurt all season and we would start a true freshman at QB for half the season in the SEC and we would end 7-5, I would have hugged your neck and high-fived you with all the giddiness of a school boy.

This was a good season. I won’t let a heartbreaking loss to UT take this fact away. You can gripe and complain all you want about coaching, but I don’t see many other coaches in the country doing what Rich has done with the talent he has over the last four years. And, the only game I got to attend we won (Georgia in Athens). Good season, Cats! Now let’s get well and tear someone up in a bowl game.

must remember where you are………is this not a rebuilding season? Is this not a season where you lost some major players and yet you are still 7-5? Its all perspective. You beat Georgia and Auburn and were close to South Carolina and Tennessee. Just look back to Tru’s post about Kentucky football this week. This team accomplilshed more then others thought that they would. They should be proud. Yes, I know it hurts to lose to Tennessee but you have to look to the whole season. Everyone was singing their prasies before this game-you cannot just go cold on them and declare that they didn’t play with heart last night. I saw some good plays. The game went into overtime people. kentucky came too play.

and a solid season. I may occassionally run my mouth to UK fans during basketball season (normally because I’m peeved we just lost to UK (again)), but I am impressed at how scrappy the Cats were on the football field this year, with some upset road wins and gritty games against UT and So Car. Saturday was a game that could’ve gone either way. If Dennis Rogan doesn’t make a game-saving tackle on your QB on the final drive at the 5 yard line, things would probably be different.

You guys thrilled us by whipping Georgia and Auburn on the road and have to take some pride in that. Go out and make the SEC proud by winning a fourth straight bowl game, and hopefully Tennessee and the rest of the SEC can take care of business as well.

I think the East is going to be wide open next year, and I think UK is going to be right in the thick of it.

How you do not give the ball to one of your two best players at the end of regulation I’ll never know. And the sweep with Newton with no John Connor? Unforgivable.

yea and if we kicked the field goal in over time we might have held them to the same.

Does Kentucky keeep the best in the state? Until we convince them to stay here we don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to comparing ours to any program with regards to instate recruiting.

well, you guys figure it out. I’ve got some stuff to do.
If, after you find away we won the game, let me know.

has got this program running in the right direction. He is not going backwards but forwards. That my friends is a good thing not a bad thing.

Spurrier wouldn’t surprise me either. If south carolina ever got a stud qb, watch out.