On a cold, windy and miserable day in Lexington, Ky., Vanderbilt suffered its seventh loss of the season, a 38-26 defeat at the hands of the University of Kentucky Wildcats, ending Vanderbilt’s hopes for a bowl bid.

This will be the 24th consecutive bowl-less season for the Dores, who haven’t participated in postseason play since the 1982 Hall of Fame Bowl.

“This was a winnable game, but we have to find ways to make it happen,” said Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson.

A game that featured 1,218 yards of offense and 64 points was uncharacteristically sloppy for both teams, though the Dores’ errors proved more costly in the end. Sophomore quarterback Chris Nickson had an excellent performance, completing 23 of 37 passes for a career-high 446 yards, while leading the team rushing with 16 carries for 71 yards and two touchdowns.

“Chris had a mostly good game, and he’s going to continue to get better and will be a fine player for us,” Johnson said.

However, it was a critical mistake that he made at a key juncture of the fourth quarter that was most memorable from this game.

After the Wildcats took the lead 24-20 in the fourth quarter, Nickson deftly moved the Commodore offense to a first-and-goal at the 1-yard line with 12 minutes left in the game. Nickson’s first-down pass was dropped by a wide-open receiver in the end zone, however, and a second-down carry by Cassen Jackson-Garrison was stopped for a 2-yard loss. On the third-down play, Nickson dropped back to pass and managed to evade several defenders, but as he was being dragged down, he tried to find sophomore George Smith in the middle of the end zone, and his attempt was intercepted by a Kentucky defender who then returned the ball to midfield.

“It was an ill-advised pass,” Nickson said. “I thought I read the defense well, and I wanted to make a play. But as soon as I let the ball go, the linebacker stepped up and made a good play on the ball.”

Four plays later, Kentucky quarterback Andre Woodson found Mike Ford in the end zone for a 27-yard touchdown pass to make the score 31-20 and push all the momentum in favor of the home squad. On the next Commodore possession, Nickson moved the Dores into the Wildcat red zone again.

Just as on the previous possession, however, Nickson’s pass was intercepted by the Wildcats, and another Wildcat touchdown drive sealed the Commodores’ fate.

The game featured a number of eye-popping stat-lines by players on both teams, though the final score was not nearly indicative of how explosive the offenses were and how inept and frustrated the defenses felt.

“We didn’t play very well on defense today,” Johnson said. “We allowed them to turn a lot of short gains into really long plays.”
Bennett finished the game with 11 receptions for 220 yards, giving him consecutive games against the Wildcats that featured career-highs. In last season’s high-scoring affair in Nashville, the Southeastern Conference standout caught nine passes from quarterback Jay Cutler, five of them for touchdowns, in a losing effort.

This time, however, Bennett received some help in carrying the offense, as senior receiver Marlon White caught six of Nickson’s passes for 121 yards, and Smith caught three balls for 79 yards.

The Dores rolled up 621 yards of offense but were unable to convert many of their opportunities. Nickson fumbled after a designed scramble on the Wildcat 2-yard line on the first play of the second quarter with the game still scoreless. Sophomore place-kicker Bryant Hahnfeldt continued to struggle, missing two field goal attempts, one for 37 yards and another for 40 yards.

Special teams had a very frustrating performance, as numerous long snaps were either high or off the mark, including one extra point snap that was fumbled. Freshman cornerback D.J. Moore fumbled a punt return at the beginning of the third quarter which was recovered by the Wildcats, and the return game in general was able to generate very little when they did hang on to the ball.

Now, with their hopes of a bowl game dashed, the Commodores return to practice this week to prepare for cross-state and SEC rival Tennessee as they close out their season next Saturday in Nashville.

“Right now, we’re just focused on Tennessee,” Nickson said. “We’re not going to stop and think about anything else except Tennessee.”