By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Kentucky will be without its regular punter for the remainder of the season.
Colin Goodfellow suffered a season-ending injury after taking a hit from Missouri’s Will Norris while punting away a botched snap in a 21-17 win over the Tigers last Saturday in Columbia.
A roughing-the-passer penalty was called on Norris and gave the Wildcats a first down instead of giving Missouri solid field position in the fourth quarter. The Cats were able to run out most of the clock to secure the win.
Kentucky punter Colin Goodfellow will miss the remainder of the Wildcats season after suffering a leg injury in Saturday’s game against Missouri (Photo from UK Athletics)
“Feel very bad for Colin, as he made a tremendous play for us at that moment,” Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops said during his weekly press conference Monday. “But unfortunately, he took a serious injury and will be out the remainder of the season. He made a great play and sacrifice for the team. Unfortunately, he is done and hurt seriously. We’ll continue to get more tests and other evaluations on him today.”
The Wildcats (6-3, 3-3 Southeastern Conference) have been hampered by inconsistent play within their special teams unit and Saturday was no exception.
“The snaps, the missed field goals are not okay. We clearly will continue to work on that. We used two snappers in that game. Clay (Perry) has been doing all the punts because Cade (Degraw) had a leg injury and was not able to run very well but Clay’s been doing a great job,” Stoops said. “That’s actually the first bad snap Clay’s had all year so everybody assumes the other one was actually Cade (and) Cade has had one bad snap all year, and Clay has had one bad snap all year. We have confidence in both of those guys and will continue to work on it.”
For the remainder of the year, redshirt freshman Wilson Berry is expected to punt. The redshirt freshman, who was expected to be the No. 1 punter before the season, had one punt for 35 yards against Missouri last Saturday.
Kentucky will close out the regular season with three consecutive home games, starting with Saturday’s contest at noon against Vanderbilt. The Commodores (3-6, 0-5) are winless in the conference and carry a five-game losing streak into the contest.
“Everybody just thinks that is not a very good football team,” Stoops said. “That is not true. Vandy is arguably coming off one of the the hardest stretches of any team.
“You know, if you look at them in the last four or five games, and who they’ve had to play in in our conference, and what they must be going through physically and mentally, it’s just a very tough grind.”
Kickoff set vs. Bulldogs: Kentucky’s game with Georgia on Nov. 19 has been set for 3:30 p.m. and will be televised on CBS.
Gametracker: Vandy at Kentucky, noon, Saturday. TV/Radio: SEC Network, UK Radio Network.
Keith Taylor is the sports editor for Kentucky Today. Reach him at keith.taylor@kentuckytoday.com and via Twitter at keithtaylor21.
