Georgia Bulldogs 29 at Kentucky Wildcats 24: Postmortem

Two things I want to say at the outset.

First, I told you that Kentucky had a recent history of playing Georgia well. I don't know why, and neither do you, dear reader, but it is a fact.

Second, this was the kind of game the beleaguered Wildcats can build on. They can't build an SEC championship, or even a winning season. But they can build enough confidence to win most, if not all of their last four games, which all happen to be against opponents that are not significantly better than Kentucky, and at least one of which is notably inferior.

Congratulations to the Georgia Bulldogs. In all honesty, it would have been a shame for SEC football if they had lost this game to UK, as poorly as we have played this year. Kentucky, in all fairness, hasn't earned the right to upset a team like Georgia this year. With that said, that one BS spot in the first half might have made the difference. But alas.

Anyway, I'm not much for sour grapes, especially when we idiotically had a punt block on in the second half when any rational special teams coach would have had a return on. The resultant running into the kicker call pretty much ended any UK hopes, and that's nobody's fault but ours.

Kentucky superlatives:

• Game ball: Jonathan George. He set the tone with many powerful runs. Raymond Sanders III deserves an honorable mention, but George was the man for me tonight. Morgan Newton also deserves an honorable mention, scoring 2 touchdowns, one by his arm and one with his feet.
  
• I cannot believe what an outstanding game Collins Ukwu played tonight, and he didn't sack the QB one time.
• The defensive line deserves a lot of credit -- they got two sacks, and they were right there a number of times. It's just that Aaron Murray really is that good, and his receiving corps is also.
• Strong performance tonight against the Georgia running game. Not so good against the pass.
• Yes, Georgia overlooked us. I don't care, they should have.
• Special teams were a disappointment tonight. Besides the nice return by DeMarcus Sweat, they didn't do anything well.
• Landon Foster is a weapon. To bad we can't give him what he deserves yet.
• Not a bad effort by the young secondary. Not good, either, but they should be much tougher next year.
• Randy Sanders called a great game tonight on offense. But for 2 or 3 calls, the whole game was outstanding by all the coaches. Unfortunately, Kentucky is not good enough to survive even one or two bad calls against a team like Georgia.
• At least the homecoming fans got a genuine football game, something Kentucky hasn't played in quite a while. Dermontti Dawson at least doesn't have to walk away ashamed.
  

Yes, the best you can say about this is that it's a "moral victory." In football, those actually exist for me, although I can't blame anyone for not agreeing with that. For me, the bottom line is that UK was competitive and could have won this game, but neither the staff nor the team was good enough to pull that off.

Anyway, on to the Missouri Tigers. Perhaps the experience of this game will be enough to place us in a position to win that one.