LEXINGTON, Ky. – South Alabama scored three second-quarter touchdowns and held a pair of leads, but Kentucky pulled away in the second half for a 45-21 win Saturday at Kroger Field. The loss drops the Jags to 2-2 on the season while the Wildcats improve to 3-1.
Key Moments
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The South Alabama special teams unit recovered a muffed punt by Kentucky at its own 22-yard line after Kam Robinson pounced on the loose ball. That led to a PJ Martin touchdown run from seven-yards out.
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Anthony Eager gave South Alabama a 14-7 lead when Jared Hollins found him for a 36-yard pitch and catch. It was the fifth time in Eager's career he's had a touchdown for the Jaguars.
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Hollins later found Jeremiah Jones-Thomas for a 19-yard touchdown reception. That gave the Jaguars a 21-14 lead with 1:22 to go in the first half.
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Kentucky answered on its next play from scrimmage with a 75-yard touchdown run. The Wildcats then intercepted a pass and kicked a 34-yard field goal with 16 seconds remaining to take a 24-21 halftime lead.
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Kentucky added three second half touchdowns to take control and secure a 45-21 final.
Key Stats
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Jeremiah Jones-Thomas recorded his first career receiving touchdown. He also went for a career-high 91 yards on six receptions.
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It was the second time the defense forced at least two turnovers. The first time came against Southeastern Louisiana, forcing two interceptions
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Blaylock's 11 tackles and Dallas Young's 10 tackles marks the first time two Jaguars have recorded double digit tackles in the same game this season.
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Hollins completed a career-high 23 passes for 266 yards and two touchdowns.
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Eager caught four passes for 67 yards and a touchdown.
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Martin led South Alabama with 48 rushing yards and a touchdown on nine carries.
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South Alabama totaled 354 yards of offense, including 266 through the air.
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Christian Ross recovered his second fumble this season late in the third quarter.
Notables
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Kentucky won the toss and elected to defer. South Alabama received the opening kick from the south end zone.
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The Jaguars scored all 21 of their points in the second quarter.
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Quarterback Jared Hollins threw a career-high two touchdown passes. His previous high was one, with the last coming against Ohio last Saturday.
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Cole Blaylock recorded a career-high 11 tackles, topping his previous best of seven against Tulane on Sept. 1, 2026.
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South Alabama recovered two Kentucky fumbles. Robinson recovered a muffed punt, and Ross recovered a fumble in the third quarter.
Quotable
Head Coach Major Applewhite
Quick reaction to the game...
"My natural reaction, I hate to lose, regardless of who the opponent is or how good they are. I liked the way our team played.?I liked our mentality, the behavior as a football team, and the style of play. I guess that would be the best way to describe it, but, you know, we've got to be better on third down. I've got to be better on third down. I haven't looked at it yet, but [there are some things] just in the third quarter. I knew we were gonna have to throw the ball to be competitive in this ball game and go win it. It kind of got away from us there towards the middle and the end of the third quarter. We didn't come here to like, you know, play close or any of that stuff. We're gonna be aggressive before half within two minutes. We gave them a turnover, and they got points out of it to go up three. Then we come out in the second half and have a long drive that we give up quickly.?And then there were some fourth downs there in the third, you know, to get it back to a 10-point ball game, you gotta go for this. And I'm not trying to sound tough or anything like that, but we didn't come to Lexington to play close. You know, we did that last year and this time we wanted to win the ball game. I just love the way the players were still aggressive, and there's some things that we learned.?A good ball club is going to expose some things on your ball club, and we'll learn some things fundamentally, schematically, that, you know, that we need to tighten up going into conference play."
Applewhite on the offensive play…
"We had some issues there on third down, and that's where some of the, you know, they call it sequencing – third and long runs, trying to get it to a more manageable fourth down. We had a fourth down there in the third quarter and I'm always gonna look inward, but we just did not execute well. We had the shovel play and we just did not execute the play well, and we've executed it the right way before. We scored on it against Tulane.?We just didn't execute well, and there's some things towards the end, you know, right there at the end of the third quarter. We're getting ready to go in the red zone, we're down 10, and we're aggressive and go for it on fourth down. There's always things we can do better as coaches and players, so we just have to go look at the film and see where all of us are because there's no hierarchy. Coaches need to do better, players need to do better, but more than anything, we all need to be honest with ourselves and see where we're going to come out at."
Quarterback Jared Hollins
On the teams performance...
"We had a good first half, but you can't turn the ball over right before the end of the half and give them a chance to get 3 points going into halftime; that's a big deal. We ultimately came out a little flat in the second half, and they took advantage of it. So we just need to get that figured out and get back to work next week."
On moving on to conference play...
"Obviously, conference play is the most important thing. We're going to face who we're going to face, and those teams know who's the best and how those games will come down to one or two plays. We know them, and they know us. So we just have to get back to work this week and get ready to go."
Wide Receiver Anthony Eager
On his touchdown...
"It's just good to be back. Coming off an injury all spring, it's really good to be back in that end zone again, stacking those good days, and we'll come out on top one day."
On moving into conference...
"Really, no one can mess with us if we play like we played in the first half. We came out and just swung. If we come out swinging and stay on it, I think we can win the conference."
Safety Cole Blaylock
On the teams effort...
" The effort is always good, we just have to clean up the mistakes we're making. We have to tackle and fill our gaps better to get ready for conference play coming up.
On how to stop momentum shifts...
" It's a hard thing to do, but we have to do it better. The same thing happened against Ohio. We lost some momentum coming out of the half and found a way to win and we just didn't do that today.
Up Next
South Alabama will prepare for Sun Belt Conference play next week as they host ULM on Saturday, Oct.3 at 6 p.m. CT for homecoming.
