Kentucky opened some eyes across the college football landscape by flirting with a primetime upset of top-ranked Georgia last weekend, but when the dust settled on a 13-12 loss to the Bulldogs, the Wildcats found themselves staring at an eight-quarter streak of failing to score a touchdown.
That's been a tough pill to swallow for new offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan and a unit that entered the 2024 season with high expectations after adding former five-star quarterback prospect Brock Vandagriff and four other high-profile transfer portal additions to a promising roster.
"We think things are there, we just gotta keep working it," Hamdan said after Tuesday's practice at the Joe Craft Football Training Center. "This is not a final product in Week 2 or Week 3, it's a constant state of improvement. That's the message for them, for myself, for everybody. We've gotta keep taking the next step."
Kentucky (1-2, 0-2 SEC) put up 31 points and tossed three touchdown passes in its season opener against Southern Miss but managed only six field goals in the next two games against two of the league's better defenses in South Carolina and Georgia.
On a bright note, the Wildcats have found success in the ground game. They ran for 139 yards against the Gamecocks and posted 170 against Georgia. UK is one of only four teams to rush for that many yards against the vaunted Bulldog defense in the last five years, and Demie Sumo-Karngbaye's 98 yards on 22 carries was the third best against a UGA team in that same time period.
Sumo-Karngbaye has been a pleasant surprise, Hamdan said, helping fill the starter's role with Ohio State transfer Chip Trayanum sidelined since camp with a broken hand.
"It's critical," Hamdan said of the ground game. "With this offense, it's always going to start with being able to run the football."
The passing game, however, has yet to take flight. The Cats currently rank 131st out of 134 Division I teams in passing offense despite the presence of Vandagriff and three experienced and productive receivers (Barion Brown, Dane Key, and Ja'Mori Maclin) at their disposal.
"It's something we have to address," Hamdan conceded. "... We need to take the next step in that category."
The issues have been so numerous -- beginning with recurring breakdowns in protection -- but all of them led to UK head coach Mark Stoops controversially electing to punt while facing a 4th-and-8 from the UGA 47 with roughly three minutes remaining rather than going for it with a shot at a generational victory for the Cats.
Kentucky has allowed eight sacks through the first three weeks of the season, which ranks 107th nationally. The Cats are also a minus-1 in turnover margin, including a lost fumble by Vandagriff last week after a strip sack.
"We want to put a better brand of football out there," offensive tackle Gerald Mincey said.
Hamdan says the good news is the last two weeks have not affected his quarterback's confidence.
"I think we know we have an extremely tough, accurate player," he said. "I've been really impressed with him not being too high, not being too low. We've all got to rise up. This is a quarterback-driven system, and we've got to make things easier on him."
The other 10 positions around Vandagriff seem to be embracing that mindset.
Said Maclin: "We know what kind of guys we have. It's just about going out there and executing."
"In this day and age, you gotta eliminate the outside noise, if you will, and just go back to work," Hamdan said. "There's got to be that laser focus of just taking the next step one week at a time and each week just improving from position to position and unit to unit.
"They've been in a great place (mentally), they really have. I've been super-proud of these guys and fortunate to work with them from the standpoint of they showed right back up to work on Monday after the South Carolina game and they showed right back to work after the Georgia game. I think that's what all great teams have."
