Kentucky gets a much-needed bye week and an opportunity to rally the troops and reassess the situation after its third consecutive loss, and the ugliest of them all, in South Carolina.

We should have seen a bigger defensive decline coming. Apparently none of us fully appreciated the extent to which Kentucky's defense benefited from having a transcendent talent like Josh Allen, who had what was possibly the best individual season for a player in UK football history last season.

We were too quick to write off the contributions and consistency of Benny Snell and how his automatic success in short yardage, goal line and clutch situations helped the team.

We seemed to overlook the fact that UK lost the right side of its offensive line, and that four-year contributor George Asafo-Adjei and All-American Bunchy Stallings were fantastic football players.

Jordan Jones had 300 career tackles at linebacker, and his departure didn't warrant us saying much of anything.

Kentucky had one of the nation's best secondaries last year and lost its top six defensive backs from last year when you factor in the preseason injury to Davonte Robinson.

The kicking game hasn't been settled since Austin MacGinnis left two years ago.

And Kentucky has struggled to pass the ball for the better part of the last decade.

Viewed in that light, Kentucky's struggles this year make sense.

Here's what doesn't make sense: Over the last six months Kentucky has had six quarterbacks on the roster who are now incapable of playing in an SEC football game.

Terry Wilson is injured and out for the year.

Sawyer Smith is injured and those injuries are clearly impacting his play to such a degree that he probably isn't serviceable. How much of the struggles are due to injury, we may never know (as was the case with Drew Barker). But he is presently the lowest-rated passer in the SEC by a wide margin and making throws that clearly indicate substantial injury impact.

Gunnar Hoak transferred six months ago.

Nik Scalzo is injured and unavailable.

Walker Wood is on the roster as a scholarship player but the staff is not willing to put him into game action.

Amani Gilmore is on the roster as a scholarship player but the staff does not believe he is ready for game action.

Danny Clark makes seven if you go back only about nine months.

Taken individually, each of these cases is easily explained. The staff can't do anything about the injuries, and that accounts for half the problem by numbers and more than half the problem if you consider who the injuries are to.

One of the hardest things for a staff to do in 2019 is manage the roster at quarterback. Players are quick to transfer. Injuries happen. Demand is high and competition is fierce for those quarterbacks capable of playing.

Kentucky was fortunate and the coaching staff deserves serious credit for finding Stephen Johnson and quietly developing him to be ready when Drew Barker went down.

The staff also deserves a lot of praise for recruiting and preparing Terry Wilson in such a short span of time. Those players piloted UK to 24 wins over three seasons.

Right now it's tough to assess the overall state of Kentucky's roster in 2019 because the quarterback play has not been at an SEC level. When you cut off the head, well, it doesn't go so well.

What we know is that Kentucky's quarterback situation is a disaster right now. It's a convergence of factors that includes a rash of injuries and perhaps some other reasons that should prompt blame.

The 'Cats have gone through six scholarship quarterbacks over the last six months who are incapable of now playing in an SEC football game.