Gator Bowl collapse leaves Kentucky football facing more questions in critical offseason

The opportunity to build momentum into what might be the most important offseason of Mark Stoops’ Kentucky tenure was within reach.

Leading Clemson 21-10 in the third quarter of the Gator Bowl, Kentucky was on the verge of adding another score to put the game in hand. A 32-yard Barion Brown run on a reverse would have given the Wildcats the ball at the Clemson 24-yard line, but a face mask penalty against tight end Jordan Dingle instead backed them up to first-and-25 at UK’s own 29-yard line. Just like that a promising drive had stalled, and the door was left open for the electric fourth quarter that would follow in a 38-35 loss.

“We had an opportunity to finish really strong and try to get two W’s against two ranked teams and find a way to put ourselves in a position,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “It’s a game of inches and yards and a play here, a play there. So, it’s a tough one.”

Clemson scored a touchdown on the drive following the face mask penalty to pull within five points. Kentucky’s next three drives each ended with turnovers inside their own 40-yard line (a Devin Leary fumble, Leary interception and Barion Brown fumble). While Kentucky’s defense held strong to surrender just 10 points off those miscues, Clemson was able to regain the lead with 6:45 remaining.

The game was far from over thanks to a 60-yard touchdown pass from Leary to Brown and a 75-yard pass from Leary to Dingle to set up a 1-yard Ray Davis touchdown for a 35-30 lead with 2:39 remaining, but the collapse finished with a 3-yard Phil Mafah touchdown run to cap a 12-play, 68-yard Clemson winning drive with 17 seconds remaining.

Instead of entering the offseason on back-to-back wins over ranked ACC foes sandwiched around the return of Mark Stoops to Lexington amid interest from Texas A&M, a surprise bid to the Gator Bowl resulting from the cascading effect of Florida State being left out of the playoff, and multiple high-profile transfer portal additions, Kentucky will turn the calendar to 2024 wondering again how things went so wrong.

“I haven’t really been able to digest it quite yet,” offensive coordinator Liam Coen said. “You play a pretty clean football game, you have a lot of explosives, you throw the ball well. We didn’t run it well … but we didn’t take care of the football. Hopefully, we can be better at it this spring.”

It would be easier to dismiss the loss to Clemson as a fluke product of an unpredictable bowl season if many of the mistakes in the collapse were not repeats of the same issues that plagued the Wildcats in a regular season that included just one victory over a team that reached bowl eligibility.

Leary was again frustratingly inconsistent with multiple highlight reel throws overshadowed by crippling mistakes in key moments. Unlike the Louisville game when Kentucky was able to survive Leary’s head-shaking interception on a pass he tried to throw out of bounds with 4:34 remaining, Kentucky could not overcome the combination of two interceptions and one fumble in Jacksonville. The fumble came after he tried to extend a play — without securing the ball — when multiple Clemson defenders swarmed him in the backfield. The first interception resulted from what ended up being the last of many of his passes this season that were tipped at the line of scrimmage. The second came with 17 seconds left when he sailed a ball over the head of an open receiver.

There was pressure on Leary to perform because the Kentucky rushing attack was again boom or bust with Davis and Brown accounting for 65 of the team’s 92 rushing yards on two carries. Clemson turned a third-and-22 and a third-and-18 into first downs on two of its second half touchdown drives, continuing the defense’s third-and-long struggles. The Wildcats’ prevent defense on the final possession (in which both of its starting cornerbacks were sidelined by injury) was picked apart for five completions of at least 9 yards. Poor kickoffs and punting contributed to Clemson taking advantage of short fields.

“There was never a time I felt they quit, they turned on each other, they were bad teammates,” defensive coordinator Brad White said of his defense. “I thought all year long, no matter what the situation was, they just kept going out and battling. It wasn’t always perfect or pretty. We didn’t win every situation that we went out on, but they were always head up, chest up and were going to go give it their best.

“We just have to be better.”

Coming off Kentucky’s 10-3 2021 season there were hopes for the program taking the next step to contend for an SEC East championship. Instead, the team has failed to meet expectations in back-to-back 7-6 seasons.

With the SEC dropping its two-division format as Texas and Oklahoma join the league next season and name, image and likeness donations playing an ever important role in recruiting and retaining top talent, there are real questions about how Stoops’ Kentucky success can translate to the new world of college football.

Winning the Gator Bowl would not have erased those questions, but it would have least continued the momentum built in December into 2024. Instead, the positive feelings that resulted from upsetting Louisville have largely evaporated with the worries of the first 11 games returning.

Leading up to the Gator Bowl, Stoops frequently reminded players and coaches that the Governor’s Cup and bowl game as the only opportunities each season to walk off the field with a trophy.

“I can tell you from experience, it feels a heck of a lot better when you have to stay and have one of you present us a trophy and take it back home,” Stoops said Thursday.

Kentucky’s fourth-quarter collapse against Clemson means there will be no boost from a trophy presentation. Just more questions about what is next.

“Coaching-wise, I think there’s a lot of things that we can do a lot better, and we need to get to that,” Stoops said. “We have to have a strong offseason. You can’t have so many negative yardage plays, runs that are not giving them a chance to get going, taking sacks, putting the ball on the ground, penalties. A lot of things that are on us as a staff.”

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