Kentucky hoping to flip the script, shake first quarter blues against No. 3 Alabama

Kentucky searching for ways to jumpstart offense

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Randall Cobb had seen enough.

Standing on the Kentucky sidelines following the worst quarter of football he’d ever experienced — the Wildcats falling behind No. 1 Florida 31-0 — the sophomore wide receiver let loose with the kind of verbal tirade normally reserved for coach Rich Brooks.

“I’ve never done that, I’ve felt like I’ve never had to do that,” Cobb said. “Something just came through to me and I felt like I had to say something.”

Cobb’s words may have come 15 minutes too late, but the message was clear: This cannot happen again.

“That’s just something you don’t want to be a part of,” he said. “You don’t want to be remembered as the team that got beat like that.”

The Wildcats (2-1, 0-1 Southeastern Conference) have a chance to atone on Saturday when they host No. 3 Alabama (4-0, 1-0), but know they can’t afford to continue falling behind early.

Kentucky’s woeful first quarter against the Gators — when 12 offensive snaps netted minus-1 yard of total offense — is nothing new. The Wildcats have been outscored 139-44 in the opening stanza since the start of the 2008 season.

The irony of Kentucky’s troubles isn’t lost on Brooks. When he first arrived on campus the Wildcats had trouble finishing games. That isn’t the problem anymore — Kentucky has a 224-137 scoring edge in the second half over that same period — but many of those points have been scored while trying to play catchup.

Kentucky is 9-7 during that stretch, respectable but not what Brooks knows it could be if his team found a cure for its first quarter woes.

“It doesn’t take a math genius to figure out if we’re playing the first quarter even, we’d have a pretty good record over those last games, but we haven’t,” Brooks said.

Offensive head coach Joker Phillips, like a lot of playcallers, has an opening script he uses to get a feel for the opposing defense. Each play isn’t necessarily designed to turn into a touchdown. Getting a handful of yards — particularly on first down — would be a nice starting point.

“A lot of times you want to get all your sets in over 9-10 plays while also trying to advance the ball,” Phillips said.

Against good teams, it’s not happening.

Consider Kentucky’s first possessions against the Gators. Two penalties pushed the Wildcats back to their own 10. A sack, a 4-yard dive and an incompletion later Kentucky was punting from its end zone and the rout was on.

The next three possessions followed a similar pattern. By the time the Wildcats took their 10th snap they trailed 24-0 and the game plan was in tatters.

Part of the problem is a lack of tempo. Kentucky uses a no-huddle offense to keep things moving, but too often this year they’ve been slow to line up, giving quarterback Mike Hartline little time to check into another play if he doesn’t like what he sees.

“There’s no sense of urgency,” Phillips said. “We’ve got to give ourselves time instead of just walking around. That’s not the idea of being in no-huddle. The idea is to get up there with 25 seconds on the clock and get lined up and going from there and there hasn’t been that.”

Getting something positive from the running game would help. Yet Kentucky is averaging 3.9 yards per carry over its last two games, putting the Wildcats into too many 3rd-and-long situations. For all the progress Hartline has made in the offseason, the combination of long yardage and a talented defense makes life difficult.

“We don’t have the capability of overcoming 3rd-and-longs,” Phillips said. “If there’s a missed assignment, it’s tough for us to manage.”

It doesn’t mean Phillips is going to give the script a massive rewrite. If anything, expect Hartline to have fewer opportunities to ad-lib. Brooks is OK with sticking to the plan if it allows his team to pick up the pace.

“We may get hit in the mouth, but we’re going to get up there and run some plays without changing them,” he said.

This might not be the best week to shake things up. The Crimson Tide haven’t allowed an offensive touchdown in the first quarter this season and Brooks argues Alabama might be even meaner and nastier than the Gators.

Cobb, however, isn’t in panic mode.

“We’re just going to come out and try and match their intensity and try to play with them,” Cobb said.