No. 1/1 GEORGIA at KENTUCKY
KROGER FIELD – LEXINGTON, KY.
SEPT. 14, 2024
FINAL SCORE: No. 1/1 Georgia 13, Kentucky 12
Team Records and Series Information
- Kentucky is 1-2 overall, 0-2 in the Southeastern Conference, while Georgia is 3-0 overall, 1-0 in the SEC
- Georgia leads the series 64-12-2 and has won the last 15 in a row.
- Georgia leads 31-7 in games played in Lexington and has won the last nine.
Next Game
- Kentucky concludes its four-game homestand by playing host to Ohio University on Saturday, Sept. 21. The game time is 12:45 p.m. ET and will be televised on the SEC Network.
Team Notes
- Kentucky’s 13 points allowed vs. Georgia is the fewest since allowing 12 vs. the Bulldogs in 1995.
- This was the fewest points UK allowed vs. a No. 1-ranked team since 1959, a 9-0 loss vs. LSU.
- Kentucky has allowed 16 or fewer points in the last three home games vs. Georgia, first time to do that three times in a row in Lexington.
- Kentucky’s defense held Georgia to 262 yards of total offense, UGA’s fewest since putting up 260 against Texas A&M in November 2019.
- 262 yards total offense is UK’s fewest vs. Georgia since 1996 (212 yards).
- 262 yards total offense is UK’s fewest allowed vs. a No. 1-ranked team since 1964 when UK allowed 187 yards in the 1964 win over Ole Miss (played in Jackson).
- UK’s defense held UGA to its fewest passing yards – 160 – since Georgia Tech held Georgia to 146 yards in November 2022.
- UK allowed 166 passing yards or less in each of the first three games this season for the first time since 2010.
- The Wildcats ran 73 plays in tonight’s game, compared to Georgia’s 54. Those 73 plays are the Cats’ most since running 74 against Mississippi State in October 2022.
- The Dawgs’ 54 plays are their fewest since running 51 at Georgia Tech in November 2021.
- UK notched 23 first downs tonight, most vs. a No. 1-ranked team vs. Mississippi State, also 23 in that game.
- UK’s 170 rushing yards is the most ever for the Wildcats against a No. 1-ranked team.
- It is UK’s most rushing yards vs. Georgia since 2016 (186 yards).
Player Notes
- QB Brock Vandagriff completed a career-high 14 of his 27 pass attempts for 114 yards.
- He added a career-high 13 rushes for 26 yards, including a career-long 17-yard dash for a first down in the first quarter.
- WR Barion Brown had three catches for a team-high 34 yards.
- He now has 100 catches in his career, becoming the 20th player in Kentucky history with at least 100 receptions.
- He’s tied for the fourth-fastest player in school history to reach 100 catches (29 games).
- WR Dane Key added three catches for 23 yards.
- RB Demie Sumo-Karngbaye set career highs with 22 carries for 98 yards. That’s the most yards ever for a Wildcat vs. a No. 1-ranked team.
- In just the second game of his college career, freshman RB Jamarion Wilcox, had a nine rushes for 43 yards, both career highs.
- Eight of his nine rushes came in the second half, for three first downs.
- LB D’Eryk Jackson, DB Ty Bryant and DB Zion Childress tied for the team high with six tackles apiece.
- Childress (-5 yards) and Bryant (-4 yards) had a tackle for loss each, while Childress and Jackson notched a pass breakup each.
- K Alex Raynor extended his streak to 10 straight field goals – a stretch that began last season against Tennessee at Kroger Field on Oct. 28, 2023 – with four FGs in tonight’s game.
- Two of his four field goals were more than 50 yards, including his school-record 55-yard field goal to put Kentucky on the board first late in the first quarter.
- He becomes the second player in school history with two 50-yarders in one game, with Joe Bryant doing so, also against Georgia, in 1977.
- The previous school record was 54 yards, made by Austin MacGinnis against Tennessee in Knoxville on Nov. 15, 2014.
- Raynor is now 17-of-18 at field goals and 52-of-53 at extra points in his career at Kentucky.
- Raynor’s 12 points tonight is the most against a No. 1-ranked team since Patrick Towles scored two touchdowns vs. Mississippi State in 2014.
- Two of his four field goals were more than 50 yards, including his school-record 55-yard field goal to put Kentucky on the board first late in the first quarter.
Game Captains
- C Eli Cox, DL Deone Walker, QB Brock Vandagriff, LB D’Eryk Jackson
KENTUCKY FOOTBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
KENTUCKY VS. No. 1 Georgia
KROGER FIELD – LEXINGTON, KY.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2024
UK Student-Athletes
#12, Brock Vandergriff, QB
On how he felt like he played…
“Obviously could have made some more plays, giving the guys the ball in the perimeter. It felt like we just came up short a little bit obviously but my play could have improved. I think the O-line played well, skill played well, running backs ran the ball well- just a couple plays came down to it and have to be able to complete some of the passes.”
On if he thought the explosive plays were there…
“Well, obviously when you have Barion [Brown] and Dane [Key] we do think we should take the top off from them from outside– they’re not going to give you those one-on-one matchups a lot. As you can see, we had a couple of shots dialed up and the corner bails stuff like that so we get just a deeper zone and you have to take what they give you, chuck the ball down, and sometimes if you’re running out of time in the pocket you know you have to make sure, you just try to get the ball out of your hands. But whenever they’re playing deep and try to take away that stuff because of those threats on the outside– I just have to take what they give you and try to stay on task.”
On his running helping the offense…
“I don’t think about it too much. Just execute when plays come in, keep my eyes on the read key things of that sort and if the read key tells me to pull it then obviously pull it, but I think it’s important if that’s what coach Hamdan thinks is important then I’m going to do whatever he calls to the best of my abilities. I think it’s good for the offense to be able to have a quarterback that can move and stuff like that and coach Marrow was joking with me after about it a little bit– but I think it’s important.”
#11, Zion Childress, DB
On active participation in tackles and performance in game…
“I just came to play today. I played a decent game last week, a fairly good game, I just kept telling myself that was my goal for the rest of the year, to continue to play well every week. Just lead those guys, they’re expecting me to do my job at a high level and they’re expecting me to beat them at a high level.”
On the bounce back from South Carolina performance to Georgia performance…
“The effort was there last week; the execution wasn’t there. So that was the biggest thing, being able to do your job, knowing what you need to do, and knowing your job last week.
On the defense’s sense of cohesion and progress…
“You’ll never be all the way there. There’s always room for improvement. Like I said, everybody that suited up on defense, anybody that suited up today, put in some great effort.”
#16, Alex Raynor, K
On reinforcing Coach Stoops’s confidence in him…
“Yeah, I am so grateful for the coaches and this staff that believe in me, and I wouldn’t be here without them.”
On what range he and the coaches felt comfortable attempting field goals from…
“No, my job is to go out there and do whatever they send me out to do. I feel comfortable anywhere on the field.”
On setting a school record and if he knew it was good…
“Honestly no, it was an ok hit ball, but all the training and stuff that my coaches and I do is about making those miss-hits still go in from a distance especially.”
Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart
Opening Statement …
“You know, I think I’ll open with immense amount of respect for Coach Stoops. The atmosphere, the culture he created here. I tried to tell everybody all week, nobody listened to me. I know what this teams made out of, I know how tough he coaches, I know several coaches on the staff, I’ve known them for a long time. I have tremendous respect. When they get disrespected like they did last week and they listen to it for a week, they come out ready to play. I think our kids listen to that; they understood it but also think it’s a tough environment to play in. So proud of the resiliency our kids showed. They never flinched. We thought this would be a blow-by-blow game. We talked all week about blow-by-blow, we had more blows than them. And we said that the first chop of the tree doesn’t chop the tree down, it takes sometimes two other sets and two axes. It took every single one tonight to get the job done. What I will say, I’m proud of our team, proud of our leadership. Honestly, we even won this game, the culture. The culture of our team never panicked. I saw more leadership tonight than I’ve seen all season. And you guys asked me a thousand questions about what about this team this, this team this, I don’t know much about this team, but I found out more tonight than I’ve known them this morning. That makes me extremely proud of how they responded, how they handled some difficult situations.”
On how important for them to face adversity and overcome it …
“I’d rather not face it. I mean, I didn’t, I’d prefer to be that way. But I also told people all week. We played on the road to Missouri two years ago I guess, three years ago.? I don’t know, we’ve been on the road to Auburn. I get it. When you go on the road for the first time in the SEC at night, and you keep a team in the game, you don’t start fast. It’s going to be a challenge, and we responded to the challenge. The best thing is we got a lot of things to work on.”
On Georgia’s offense playing with fire …
“Playing with fire or not scoring first? I wouldn’t call that playing with fire, I would call that not playing. Playing with fire is like playing with your hair on fire and playing hard. I do think they play hard. I think we have a really good offensive staff, we have a really good offense, we have people around them, we have a good quarterback. We’ve got to do a good job and go out and execute. I mean say what you want about Kentucky’s defense, but Kentucky’s defense is pretty good to me. We’ll judge that at the end of the year, and I think people are looking at that the wrong way of the South Carolina game. I think Kentucky has a really good defense and I think Clemson’s got a really good defense. We’ve got to do a better job at starting faster.”
On how playing in Kentucky’s atmosphere will help the team and young guys …
“It will be an adventure every time we go on the road. It’s a tough schedule guys, when we got it, I knew it. The first game I pointed out was Kentucky because everybody was talking about the other three on the road, but I was like guys we’re going to Kentucky on the road. And people don’t credit them because they had turnovers against South Carolina, and they didn’t play well against South Carolina. But that team was going to play well tonight, and they did. And we responded.”
Georgia Student-Athletes
#15, Carson Beck, QB
On making adjustments to pull off the win….
“Like you said, it’s not easy. Especially on the road. You go back and look at two road SEC games in the past three years. Missouri 2022, dog fight. Last year, Auburn, dog fight. This year, dog fight. We knew it was going to be a dog fight coming in. We knew it was gonna have to be blow by blow. I think there’s a thing we have to fix. Going to watch the film and improve on those. They’re a physical team and a lot of respect there, but we were able to pull it out.”
On defense still not allowing a touchdown…
“It’s unbelievable. You look at our defensive-line, freshmen are stepping up. We got freshmen all over the field. Guys are being put in places, fighting through injuries, all the above. I’m super proud of them and how they played tonight.”
On seeing Brock Vandagriff…
“Awesome for him. Really proud of him. He played a pretty good game tonight. Haven’t seen him in forever. Actually, I didn’t even get to talk to him or see him after the game. But obviously proud of him and best of luck to him in the future.”
#10, Damon Wilson II, OLB
On assessing the defensive performance today…
“Gotta get better. Coach Smart said, ‘We’re going to have teams that are going to have guys we will compete with’, so we just got to get better from here. This was not our best game. Just got to do more. Monday’s a recovery day.”
On not playing the best, but winning on the road…
“Composure, connection, resiliency. All of those going in. When it gets hard, you have to come together. Can’t separate, can’t fold. CJ was telling us ‘We got to stay connected, stay together.’ Those are our traits. We live by those, abide by those.”
On what the defense would say in order to hold UK to only FGs in the red zone…
“Strike. We got to strike. We got to fight. I mean, we get to the red zone, I think it was 92% run, and we knew they were going to run the ball. So, there was no other thing besides run, run, run. Put our big boys in, they got a strike.”
#12, Julian Humphrey, DB
On some key players missing …
“That’s how it is in practice, we prepare for this, and we all rotate if one can’t play. I pretty much knew what was going to happen going into this game. I just had to prepare myself for it.”
On bigger games ahead…
“The thing about those teams is we have to see what they do. What is their game plan moving forward? How they hit their targets and all that they do.”
On what they learned about themselves today…
“I’ll say that obviously, a big part of our downfall today was how we were missing a lot of guys. I think once we get them back we’ll be more successful. With those guys back well be more up there and better.”
#6, Dominic Lovett, WR
On Kentucky…
“They played with energy and physicality; they played a great game. Props to them. I’m not going to say that we couldn’t get in a rhythm that is simply just a very good team.”
On the lone touchdown…
“That was big, Trevor [Etienne] had been working all week. When there were other numbers off, he stepped up and played big. He did so good.”
On what the team needs to work on in the bye week…
“Everything, we got to go see the doctor we have to get better in all aspects and phases.”