Stoops Remains Confident in Matt Ruffolo, Kentucky's Special Teams

Special teams have plagued Kentucky on far too many occasions this season, it doesn't take a genius to realize that.

That was exemplified in the Wildcats' nail-biting 21-17 win over Missouri in Columbia on Saturday.

Super senior kicker Matt Ruffolo missed a pair of field goal attempts, bringing his make percentage down to 60 percent this season. In 15 attempts, the Centerville, Ohio native made just nine kicks, having also missed a couple of extra points along the way.

Late in the fourth quarter, Kentucky was set to punt back to the Tigers with the lead, but disaster struck as Clay Perry's snap sailed over the head of Colin Goodfellow. Racing back near the UK end zone, the punter was able to somehow collect the football and get a kick away, just moments before getting drilled by Mizzou's Will Norris.

Luckily, a penalty bailed out the special teams error, giving UK a first down. Goodfellow would pay the price, however, as he was carted off the field after getting tackled and will now miss the rest of the 2022 season, according to head coach Mark Stoops.

Despite the trio of kicking and punting errors, Kentucky escaped Columbia with an important win. The issue lies in that Saturday was far from the first time these miscues have popped up for the Wildcats.

In all four of its road games this season, Kentucky failed to have just one clean special teams outing. Whether it be due to kicks being blocked, hit wrong or just being a tad wide of the target, it's something that Stoops' group has not been able to get away from through nine games.

Even still, the head coach is riding with Ruffolo entering the final stretch of the 2022 campaign.

"Matt's the starting kicker right now," Stoops said on Monday. "You know they have it in them, you know what I mean? I have trust in Him."

Both of Ruffolo's misses against Missouri were caused by minuscule miscues, at least in the eyes of Stoops.

In the first quarter, his 43-yard attempt missed wide left:

"The first miss I think, you know, his operation was so fast. We've worked on getting the operation faster, It was just a fraction too fast," Stoops said.

In the second quarter, a 47-yard kick came up a couple of yards short, having gotten caught in a big gust of wind:

"Then the second one, (Ruffolo) probably tried to get it up but he got up into that wind, but he could have made that, he was confident. He told me you know, point blank and he wouldn't do that," he said. "He hit a gust and he hit it a little high. And again, I can't blame him for that. I thought it was a good kick. You know, I think he was worried about getting the ball up, not getting it blocked."

As he has been all season, Stoops was defensive of the special teams play as a whole. His trust in Ruffolo has never wavered, always pointing to the other things that go into making sure a field goal or extra point attempt run smoothly.

If you look at the kick return portion of special teams play, Barion Brown's ability out of the end zone is as good as any in the Stoops era at Kentucky. In 10 returns, he's racked up 343 yards and a touchdown.

Goodfellow also had a solid afternoon punting before his injury, averaging 39.7 yards-per-punt, including a pair that went deep, pinning the Tigers.

"I defend some of the special teams because there's some stuff we do really well," Stoops said. "I mean, we had two (punts) inside the 10...our kickoff return team, nobody's kicking us the ball, and that's pretty dangerous. That's that's a high degree of respect in the SEC where they're not kicking you the ball, you don't see that very often."

Of course, it doesn't mean he's making excuses for poor snaps, nearly costing his team a pivotal road win:

"Is it okay to snap the ball over somebody's head when the game's on the line? I think we all know," he said. "It's not okay, we want to be 100 percent, certainly when the game's on the line, but to lump it all together, it's not right."

It feels a tad late in the season for there to be some sort of major breakthrough in the kicking game, but there's been no dip in confidence from the Kentucky skipper amongst all the mistakes.

Kentucky Football News

Kentucky will be without punter Colin Goodfellow for the rest of the season. For more on the injury and others ahead of the Cats' matchup against Vanderbilt, click here.

Linebacker DeAndre Square has returned to the depth chart after not playing against Mizzou.

The Wildcats will kickoff at 3:30 p.m. EST next weekend against Georgia

Want the latest on national football and basketball recruiting, including Cats targets? Head over to SI All-American for the latest news, blogs, and updates about the nation's best prospects.

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