Takeaways from Kentucky’s brutal loss to Florida on the road

The Kentucky Wildcats went down to Gainesville on Saturday to take on the Florida Gators in what was a must-win to not dig theirselves a deeper hole. That didn’t work out to great, as the Wildcats were essentially manhandled all night and ended up falling by a score of 48-20. A night full of more discipline issues, it wasn’t just the offense who had a lot of issues. Kentucky’s defense allowed numerous explosive plays to Florida QB DJ Lagway, and that was one of the many faults for the Wildcats in the game.

Let’s take a look at some of the takeaways with the Wildcats sitting in a tough position just over halfway through the season.

On Saturday night, the Wildcats desperately needed their offense to get it in gear, as all season, they have struggled to get points on the board, especially against SEC foes. Aside from the Barion Brown kickoff return for a touchdown, the offense itself couldn’t find much rhythm. Kentucky converted just 4 of their 13 plays on 3rd downs, which is a struggling stat. The Wildcats found theirselves in multiple down situations a lot, and before you knew it, it was 3rd down. You can’t win unless you capitalize on offense.

In what is usually the insurance for the offense’s struggles, the defense wasn’t their self on Saturday. It was probably their worst performance of the year, and the secondary felt most of that. Kentucky allowed some really big explosive plays to Florida QB DJ Lagway. He only completed 7 passes, but threw for 259 yards, connecting to Elijhah Badger a lot, who had a game-high 148 receiving yards. It wasn’t just the passing game either. Florida also was really effective in the run game, not only Lagway scrambling (46 yards), But also running back Jadan Baugh who had all of Florida’s 5 touchdowns. It wasn’t a pretty night.

This is something that has been an issue all season, mostly last week against Vandy and week 2 against South Carolina. It rared its head again on Saturday in The Swamp. On one play, the Wildcats couldn’t capitalize on an interception by Kristian Story that got them inside the 5 yard line in the redzone. Instead, a hands to the face penalty backed the Wildcats up, and from there, they managed to come up with zero points in great field position after failing to convert on 4th down. Kentucky had 3 penalties for 30 yards. Credit where it’s due though. The Wildcats didn’t have a penalty after the opening quarter.

Kentucky now sits at 3-4 on the season, and now will welcome Auburn to Kroger Field next Saturday. That one will kickoff at 7:45 p.m. ET on SEC Network. It doesn’t get any easier from here, and the Wildcats have a lot to clean up just over halfway through the season.