Kentucky football shines in a strange opener, but next Saturday is the real deal

OK, so that was weird. You wait nearly nine months for the start of your college football season and then you have to wait two hours and 20 minutes more because of a weather, i.e. lightning, delay. Then after a 10:05 p.m. kickoff and 34 minutes of actual football time, your opener is finished before your opener is complete.

“Very strange situation there,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said after his Wildcats blanked Southern Miss 31-0 in a game that was officially called because of weather with 9:56 left in the third quarter. “Been here 12 years and never been through delays like that.”

It was all because of the light show within an 8-mile radius of Kroger Field that overshadowed the anticipated light show inside Kroger Field, what with its newly installed LED lights and ribbon boards.

To be honest, the real show starts next Saturday when the Cats welcome South Carolina to town. That’s SEC opponent South Carolina, which makes this early-season matchup with the Gamecocks all the more important.

Shane Beamer’s club didn’t exactly light things up Saturday. The Gamecocks were forced to rally to beat Old Dominion 23-19 in Columbia. “That was an awful performance,” Beamer said afterward.

Kentucky’s performance was far from awful, starting with the Big Blue Nation, which stuck around through delay after delay. It was even more amazing considering alcohol sales were not allowed inside the stadium until the weather delay ended. One customer quipped that if there had been beer sales, UK could have made enough money to build a dome over Kroger Field. Problem solved.

“To go out there two hours after we were supposed to and see them going nuts and cheering us on, that was truly amazing,” Stoops said.

Given the strange circumstances, and it being the first game of the season, the football team’s overall performance was quite impressive, as well.

New starting quarterback Brock Vandagriff, the Georgia transfer making his first college start, showed he’s one tough dude. In the run game, Vandagriff wasn’t afraid to take on Southern Miss tacklers. In the pass game, he was mobile enough to avoid the Golden Eagles’ pass rush, and strong enough to stand and deliver when he couldn’t avoid the rush.

The Athens, Georgia native was 12-for-18 passing for 169 yards and three touchdowns with one interception. Two of those TDs went to wideout of Barion Brown. Each covered 12 yards. The first came when Vandagriff extended the play long enough to find Brown in the right corner of the end zone. The other came on a pop pass. Vandagriff also hit tight end Jordan Dingle for a 5-yard score.

“Thought Brock did a super job just managing the game,” Stoops said. “Thought he did an excellent job making good decisions.”

Defensively, a chronic 2023 weakness showed up early in 2024. Southern Miss converted three third downs — including a third-and-18 — on its second possession.

Here’s the good news: After that, Kentucky did not allow the visitors to convert another third down.

Here’s the better news. Kentucky intercepted passes on each of USM’s first two possessions. Jamon “Pop” Dumas-Johnson recorded the first interception of the season. Cornerback JQ Hardaway made the second when he grabbed a pass in the end zone that had been tipped by teammate D’Eryck Jackson. That called to a halt a 75-yard drive by the Golden Eagles.

“The expectations only go up from here,” Johnson said. “Got an SEC opponent next week.”

That the Cats do. They also have a score to settle. Two, actually. Kentucky has lost two straight to South Carolina, and both were games Stoops’ troops thought they should have won. They lost 24-14 in 2022 in Lexington when quarterback Will Levis sat out with a foot injury. They lost a frustration-filled 17-14 November game in Columbia last season.

“I’ve been doing this a long time in this league and at Kentucky, and that’s very difficult loss for us right there,” Stoops said after that defeat. “I’m so very disappointed for our players that we didn’t do a better job of putting them in a position to be successful.”

It’s a different year and a different position now.

Three takeaways from Kentucky football’s opening night win against Southern Miss

After waiting three years for first college start, Brock Vandagriff handled one more delay

College football final: Kentucky 31, Southern Miss 0

Final statistics from Kentucky football’s lightning-shortened 31-0 win over Southern Miss

UK football season opener called in third quarter after multiple weather delays