On Kentucky’s second to last drive against Georgia on Saturday night, the offense was sitting on 4th and 7 with 2:58 to play and they had the decision to take the chance and will their way to a first down, or punt.

For many years now we’ve discussed the program’s “next door to knock down” being the Georgia Bulldogs, and coming off one of the worst losses in the Stoops era the week before one would argue that taking your chances there in the final minutes of the game would make the most sense instead of forfeiting the ball to the other team, but the head coach believed otherwise.

Kentucky would punt 37 yards and give Georgia the option to run the clock down until the final minute, decreasing Kentucky’s chances of scoring again to regain the lead. Kentucky would not regain possession of the football until 9 seconds were left in the game, feeling like their backs were against the wall for one final hailmary backed by a prayer.

As you can tell in the tone that I’m writing this in, I didn’t agree with the decision. After talking to Mark Stoops in the post game presser, he doubled-down and said he did not regret the decision and went through a detailed explanation on his reasoning.

“I know, people are going to question the 4th down. You know I have been honest with you for years and if I made a mistake like last week I will tell you. I do not regret punting that ball. I felt like if we went for it there and don’t make it. Our offense, if we stop them, has to go the length of the field.

That was going to be tough against that defense. And a predictable pass situation. That’s not our strength. To play to our strength, plenty of time to pin them and get the ball back.”

Granted, the UK side did have three timeouts remaining and its defense had been playing near perfect the whole night, but I think this is still just one of those situations where you go big or go home and gamble yourself into getting one more first down. The final stats show that Kentucky had 23 total first downs tonight versus Georgia’s 12, and one more puts you right into field goal range where you take the lead by two and finally knock down that barrier of beating Georgia.

One week removed from the fan base feeling like it’s at a really low spot under Stoops, you weirdly find yourself celebrating an all-time win in the very next game and to me that’s just something beyond worth it for this program. Playing it safe has hardly ever benefited Kentucky over the years and I desperately wanted Kentucky to not punt on that second to last drive, but they did, and no team would go on to score the rest of the night.

Kentucky is now 1-2 to start the season and look to host Ohio next Saturday. Tough loss to swallow, but losing by that little to a program like Georgia definitely offers some encouragement going forward.