Kentucky Offense Continuing to Make Great Strides

Kentucky’s offense played perhaps its best game of the year on Saturday night. The Cats scored six touchdowns, amassed 612 total yards and seemingly had their way against Tennessee.

But it was not enough.

Kentucky found itself on the wrong end of a 45-42 outcome in Saturday’s contest at Kroger Field. Still, offensive coordinator Liam Coen thought that the production and effort from his unit was much more of what he has been looking for from the Cats.

“It was much closer and that was the message to the guys yesterday. There were so many good things that we did in this game,” Coen said. “Playing with chemistry, all 11 playing together. Did some great things in some areas that we practice every week. First and second downs, third downs and red zone. We were five-for-five in the red zone, 70 percent on third down and obviously moving the ball on first and second down enough to get 35 first downs.”

Still, there were areas where Kentucky did not execute to the best of their abilities. Coen came up with a couple that proved to be very costly.

“But where we fell short was, end of half, end of game,” Coen said. “And that falls on all of us as a unit, myself included. It starts with me and that’s where we fell short.”

However, there was a silver lining, despite the loss.

“What’s great about a game like that is that we can coach off of it,” Coen said. “We can emphasize the end of half, end of game just as much as we emphasize third down and red zone. And that was on me, that was my fault for not being good enough in that instance. But I think that is something we need to emphasize more throughout the week of practice on offense and put ourselves, myself included as a play caller, in that two-minute situation more so that when it does come up and we have to go win a game, that we’re comfortable with it.”

Kentucky will get its next chance to tweak and perfect the offense on Saturday at Vanderbilt. The Commodores have been playing better of late but this appears to be a game where Kentucky should be able to move the ball again.

If they can, the Cats can continue to rack up big numbers on offense – and hopefully add a win in the process.