Kentucky tight end Mikkel Skinner left Saturday’s loss to Tennessee with a complaint that had nothing to do with the final score and everything to do with the sound inside the stadium.
After the Vols rolled to a 34-6 win, Skinner said Monday that Tennessee was pumping in fake crowd noise.
“It was loud, but I started peeping what Tennessee was doing,” Skinner said Monday. “When they scored, the fans, shit was not nearly as loud.
But we was on third down it was loud because the speakers were pumping fake crowd noise. It’s not real.”
Skinner’s day on the field was quiet, too. He finished with one catch for two yards and added two carries for six yards. Kentucky never found the end zone, though the crowd noise - real or otherwise - was hardly the only issue in a game that got away from the Wildcats.
The win pushed Tennessee to 7-2, and now the Vols turn their attention to Texas A&M with CFP hopes still in play. Kentucky still has those same aspirations, but Tennessee now owns the head-to-head edge.
Josh Heupel said his team had already moved on from the Kentucky tape and shifted into preparation mode for the Aggies.
“The guys were in this morning and had an opportunity to learn a lot from the (Kentucky) tape and push forward to A&M,” Heupel said. “Getting ready to go play a really good football team.
They’re talented in every phase of the game. They’ve lost some tough games.
You can look at the way that they played last week on offense, 460 yards of offense. Alabama, a couple weeks ago, they got a lead at the end of the third quarter.
And it’s a really good football team. It’ll be a great environment.
I’ve been there before and it’ll take us being at our best.”
Heupel also touched on the challenge of defending tight ends, a topic that fit the Kentucky game well enough given Skinner’s limited impact.
“You’re always going to see good tight ends in this league,” Heupel said. “Playing at this level of football, you’re able to recruit special players at that position and they’re hard to find - length, size, athleticism, ability to play in the core.
Some of those things are just eyes on the snap, being on their keys. We’ve defended it extremely well at times.
We gave up a couple of plays in this last one. One of them, we just got to play the ball.”
In Other News...
Kentucky Still Has SEC Attention But The Pressure Just Changed
Week 10 brought another reset to the national picture, and Kentucky still has a place in it. The National Football Foundations latest Super 16 poll includes five SEC teams, with Georgia holding the No. 1 spot after its win over Ole Miss and Alabama, Texas and Tennessee all clustered inside the top 10. Kentucky checks in at No. 13, a sign that the Wildcats remain part of the broader SEC conversation even as the race around them keeps tightening.
For Kentucky, the ranking is less about flash and more about staying visible in a league where every weekend can rearrange the hierarchy. The updated poll reflects how quickly the College Football Playoff discussion is shifting after recent results, and it leaves the Wildcats in a familiar position: still relevant, still in the mix, but needing the right kind of finish to turn attention into something more meaningful. [Read more 🡒]
Kentuckys Biggest Concern From The Win Wont Go Away Before Kansas
James Madisons shot chart against Kentucky was a reminder that even in an 89-80 win, there are loose ends to clean up. The Dukes launched 45 three-pointers, tying a program record for the most by an opponent, and Kentucky survived by leaning on its interior scoring edge rather than tightening things up on the perimeter.
Kansas is the next test, and that is what makes the issue linger. Kentucky got the result it needed, but the perimeter defense that let James Madison keep firing is still in the conversation, and now it has to hold up against a bigger stage and a more dangerous opponent. [Read more 🡒]
Kentucky Suddenly Faces A Response Test That Could Define This Season
The bye week was supposed to give Kentucky a reset, but instead it led to another flat performance in a 34-6 loss to Tennessee that only deepened the sense that this team has not found the right answer coming out of open dates. Will Stein pointed to turnovers and uncharacteristic mistakes after the game, and Tennessee made the Wildcats pay for every one of them as Kentuckys struggles in that spot continued to pile up.
Now the attention turns quickly to Florida, and the next game feels less like a routine SEC matchup than a response test for a team that just slid in both the AP and Coaches Poll rankings. Kentucky still has time to steady itself, but the margin for error is shrinking, and the way it answers this setback may say a lot about how the rest of the season unfolds. [Read more 🡒]