The Kentucky Wildcats took a tough 45-17 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday at Kroger Field.

Kentucky held its own but collapsed late. Alabama scored 32 unanswered points on their way to the win. It wasn’t all on Kentucky’s defense, though.

Kentucky’s offense struggled mightily throughout the game to move the ball, including ending the game just 1-for-14 on third down conversions. Their wide receivers struggled to get open against Alabama’s incredible secondary and that really showed during the Tide’s rally in the second half.

From the failed fake punt to Kenny Minchey’s strip sack, Kentucky’s offense just continued to stall drive after drive. That led to multiple short-field situations for Alabama’s offense.

Head coach Will Stein talked at length about how the Kentucky offense did not do the defense any favors late.

“We were up at halftime, which was huge. And we’ve come out in the second half and just, obviously stalled on offense. Our defense had short fields pretty much the whole game. It’s hard to defend. So 45 to 17, the scoreboard says it sucks, but when you’re defending a short field virtually the entire half and we weren’t converting on third downs, that was tough on our defense.”

Now, Kentucky will face yet another very tough defense that is also excellent at defending third downs. Moving forward, it’s going to be crucial that Kentucky finds ways to move the ball downfield on offense, especially with how brutal their schedule is. Kentucky is going to face some of college football’s best defenses and they’re going to have to find some success offensively against them or it’s going to be extremely hard to win any of those top games.

Sure, Kentucky looked good on offense against Youngstown State, but they’re going to have to show they can do the same moving forward. Besides facing top defenses like Texas A&M and LSU moving forward, they’ll have some opportunities to rack up wins. Can they respond on the offensive side of the ball?

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