Kentucky 23 @ Louisville 16: Postmortem

by Glenn Logan on Sep 4, 2010 11:05 PM EDT in Kentucky Wildcats Football

Randall Cobb was the Louisville Cardinal's worst enemy, just as everyone expected.

Kentucky won this football game, their fourth in the last four years, matching the longest winning streak of any team since the Kentucky-Louisville series has been renewed. Forget about all the rest, that alone is enough to make this a win worth savoring.

Kudos to the Louisville Cardinals for putting up the good fight, and coming out fired up for the second half. When the teams went into halftime, I thought the game was all but over. Louisville proved that sentiment was incorrect.

The only thing preventing UK fans from doing the happy dance, or maybe even Pee Wee Herman's Big Shoe dance, is the fact that UK scored a whopping 3 points in the second half compared to 10 by Louisville. After outscoring the Cardinals 20-6 and dominating the first half, even giving UK fans halftime dreams of a blowout, the Wildcats proved themselves to be a flawed team by managing only 3 measly points in the second stanza.

Putting on the hat of SEC critic, there was much to like and much to dislike when it came to Kentucky. They had moments when they looked unstoppable offensively. Then again, Kentucky had moments when they looked incompetent, particularly defensively.

But in the final analysis, no matter how much there was to criticize on both sides of the football, the one most important statistic that cannot be criticized and cannot be unsatisfying to Kentucky fans is the final score. Kentucky won, and has dominated this series for four years running. Couch it however you will, as a moral victory for Louisville or an unsatisfying closer-than-it-should-have-been win for the Wildcats, it was the fourth straight win over our most bitter rival -- and that, my friends and neighbors of the Big Blue Nation, makes this victory sweet no matter how many flaws you discover.

More after the jump.

Let's look now at the good and bad.

The Good:

The offense. No matter how hesitant and uncomfortable they looked in the second half, the offense was really very good. They had their way with the Louisville defense, and but for some silly and untimely penalties in the second half, would have put at least ten more points on the board. We can attribute Kentucky's failure to do so to early season inconsistency. The offense, taken as a whole, was very good.
The kick return game. Cobb, Locke & Co. were really good returning kicks.. They got Kentucky in excellent field position on every return but one where a return was attempted.
Punting. Ryan Tydlacka hit some monster punts. The return coverage was not that great, but the punts themselves were good.
Kickoffs. Joe Mansour hit the end zone 100% of the time. That's all you can ask of a kicker.
Play-calling. I am giving this the thumbs up in spite of the less impressive second half. I thought that mostly Joker called good plays, and a lot of the slowdown in the second half was more the fault of execution than the plays called. I thought UK went to the short side of the field a bit too frequently.

The bad:

The defensive line pass rush. It was rarely good. One sack and maybe four hurries. Louisville's experienced offensive line had something to do with that, but Kentucky should have done better.
Tackling. There were many, many missed tackles in this game, and 90% of them were due to poor fundamentals.
Field goal teams. Missed chip shots will cost you games in the SEC. The missed extra point (which I include here) is inexcusable for a kicker of Tydlacka's experience.
Linebacking corps. UK is a little young in the linebacking area, but I didn't hear enough linebacker's numbers called on tackles. They made a number of mistakes, one of which led to the touchdown by Louisville's Bilal Powell.

The indifferent:

Quarterbacking. Mike Hartline did nothing really wrong, but he threw about four wounded ducks that would have been picks in the SEC. His game management was typically good, but his arm was typically un-SEC worthy.
Defensive backfield. Too many missed tackles, but some good defensive plays. Overall, not horrible, but not good enough.
Team chemistry. I thought we had too few "Wild Cobbs," and too many short passes.the

In the end, it was a good win that does what you hope -- exposes your flaws without costing you a game. That is about the best situation you can have in a first game of season.

Just ask Florida if that's right or not.

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Comments

The run D in the second half was, to quote Charles Barkley..

Turrible

And UL had a ton of dropped passes today, which kept them from making a serious run.

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel, is just a freight train coming your way...
@btcoop71

by btcoop71 on Sep 4, 2010 11:08 PM EDT reply actions

Yeah.

Turrible it was. Well, I love the result if not the guts of the effort.

A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan

by Glenn Logan on Sep 4, 2010 11:24 PM EDT up reply actions

Not bad for openers

There’s not a coach in the country who expects perfection in the season opener, and fans shouldn’t be expecting perfection either. The fact that Kentucky didn’t turn the ball over even once is a good trade-off for all the silly penalties, and with all the new faces on UK’s defensive unit, I thought they played surprisingly well.

by dentre on Sep 5, 2010 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions

Anybody find out why

two defensive starters did not start the game? I thought this was especially odd since one of the players was DeQuin Evans. Isn’t he the defensive captain? The announcers said that it was a last minute change.

by Cameron1 on Sep 4, 2010 11:14 PM EDT reply actions

I have no idea.

I am wondering also.

A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan

by Glenn Logan on Sep 4, 2010 11:21 PM EDT up reply actions

Evans and Guy were late to a team meeting

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel, is just a freight train coming your way...
@btcoop71

by btcoop71 on Sep 4, 2010 11:24 PM EDT up reply actions

kudos to joker for not starting them...

at the root of it, i believe the issues on defense were discipline based (not using proper technique, penalties, etc) so it needs to start in the locker room

only one rule in my house - uk has to be your favorite college bball team

by memphis wildcat on Sep 5, 2010 9:31 AM EDT up reply actions

Really?

I’m going to have to call you “scoop” instead of “coop”. Thanks for the info.

by Cameron1 on Sep 4, 2010 11:56 PM EDT reply actions

Good to get the W ... Cards had (were given) momentum late ... but, W's a W

Lot of positives to build on from this game …. Also watched GA game and USC game – we’ll have to get alot better to knock off those two …..

by ukcris on Sep 5, 2010 12:04 AM EDT reply actions

I am still doing my happy dance

for numerous reasons. First on my list, football in Kentucky has officially started. Secondly, It will continue next Saturday, and thirdly, a four year winning streak against the red birds with big teeth feels really great.

Blue... there is no other color to Bleed !!!

by a2d2 on Sep 5, 2010 7:23 AM EDT reply actions

This is a really good summary, Tru

I will add my initial reactions:

Hartline: Made good decisions throughout the game, and beyond just game management he was even a playmaker on a few possessions. The SEC is a whole different animal, but he was a good QB to match up with UofL. Three times now.

Locke: You can’t teach speed. And luckily for us, sometimes the opposing team can’t defend it.

Cobb: Mr. Everything. He does it all, and the WildCobb Formation was money in the bank every time it was used. The one-handed reception followed on the next play by a long TD run out of the WildCobb is a two-play series that is just made for a YouTube ‘mix tape’- and doesn’t even require any edits.

Entire receiving corps: The most pleasant surprise of the game for me. By far. As a group, they really stepped up and made plays for the QB. Locke was certainly a fine choice, but I would have handed the Schnellenberger to this group, I think.

Final thought: As you said a couple of times, in the end this win represented the 4th straight over the Cardinals. I will always be happy with one of those.

-- Tim . http://HomeSalesLexington.com/barn

by HSLex on Sep 5, 2010 7:30 AM EDT reply actions

running to the short side....

i understand keeping the defense honest, but with Locke’s speed, seems to me you would want to give him as much room as possible to break one. that being said, perhaps, UofL’s fastest defenders were on the wide side so that Locke’s chances may have been better on the short side.

also – didn’t sanders call the plays? i know the buck stops with the head coach, but we blamed joker last year for play calling as OC….

only one rule in my house - uk has to be your favorite college bball team

by memphis wildcat on Sep 5, 2010 9:34 AM EDT reply actions

I am not a big fan

of Hartline and this game did not make me ready to drink the Kool-aid but it was one of his best performances so far.

The very first play from scrimmage would have been a touchdown had he not hung one up there that King had to come back and catch. Hartline will probably look pretty good in the next two games but I won’t be a believer until he is effective against the Florida defense.

This is not a complaint against the game performance, I think most of the biggest mistakes are correctable and the young players just had to get them out of their systems (hopefully) in a real game situation.

Haven’t seen an injury report but if all we have are dings and bruises, we are in good shape to proceed.

I woke up feeling BLUE this morning. It's gonna be a great day.

by kywineman on Sep 5, 2010 9:45 AM EDT reply actions

A few answers

1. I’m pretty sure that joker is not calling the plays.
And according to what Joker said after the game – the two defensive players that did not start were late fore a team meeting and he said there had to be consequences, but that Evans was still defensive captain.
Joker also said during the post game inerview that while Mansour was crushing the kickoffs, he was partly at fault for the poor kickoff coverage because their schemes are designed For the ball to be kicked outside the of the hashes and he was not getting the ball there

waiting on a new banner being raised into the rafters of Rupp..........

by cdnWildcatfan on Sep 5, 2010 10:00 AM EDT via mobile reply actions

I'm not by any means a very nuanced observer

But to these eyes, it looked like both lines really wore down in the second half. Is that a depth issue? Lots of good things from the game, but this struck me as the game went along as a problem.

by BCinVA on Sep 5, 2010 10:48 AM EDT reply actions

I am kinda surprised Tru

that you put Hartline in the indifferent column. In the first half Hartline was much more than indifferent, in fact I thought he was exceptional. The attitude toward Hartline by a few of you is no different that Paris attitude about football coverage on this site or his feeling about Joker getting the head job. I for one, believe football coverage is pretty good on here, at least in season it is. During the game yesterday, Hartline was playing very good at the time and a couple of people said negative things about him. This is our UK QB, he deserves better in my opinion. This isn’t his sophomore year when he basically had one guy that could catch a ball after Dicky went out. He wasn’t even going to start that year until Pulley showed he had no discipline and was kicked off the team. Last year, Hartline looked very good against SC when he went down. That could have been the game that changed a lot of peoples minds about him. Now we have somebody saying they will believe in Hartline when he plays well against Florida. Not to many QB’s can do that. Hartline is going to have bad games this year. Our offensive line is just to inexperienced for that not to happen against good SEC defenses. I didn’t count 4 balls that would have been intercepted by SEC teams either. Some of the scambles that Hartline pulled off were big time plays that led to scores and you didn’t even mention them. I know one thing, Hartline is our QB and I am going to give him a chance this year. Yes there will be times I get frustrated, but I do know enough about the game that it is not always the QB’s fault for bad plays. I am sorry for blowing off steam but I just need to get this off my chest.

by Grasslands1 on Sep 5, 2010 11:19 AM EDT reply actions

I don't

have an attitude against Hartline. He played an excellent game for the most part, making plays while scrambling and getting rid of the ball to avoid sacks. I just quit breathing everytime he airs one out because he rarely leads the receiver enough to let him catch it in stride. There were some plays yesterday that showed us that we have excellent receivers and I hope he can get catchable balls to them on a more consistent basis. Failure to do so will hurt us in the SEC games. I’m just saying that if he has a good game against Florida, I will become a convert.

I woke up feeling BLUE this morning. It's gonna be a great day.

by kywineman on Sep 5, 2010 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions

Masthay A Packer

Former Cat wins punting job for GB. Lindley and Conner also survive cut.

"People unfit for freedom -- who cannot do much with it -- are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a 'have' type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a 'have not' type of self." — Eric Hoffer

by Wild Weasel on Sep 5, 2010 2:21 PM EDT via mobile reply actions