I’d like to tell you that you’re in for a treat on Saturday night when Tennessee hosts Kentucky. However, I won’t be trying to trick you just to be unique.
By all indications, the Vols are going to thump the Wildcats. Here are four reasons why:
Cats have no claws at QB
This is not the time of the season to be dealing with a quarterback controversy. In fact, there’s never a good time to be dealing with such. However, that’s what the Wildcats are having to manage as the calendar turns to November.
Against Auburn on Saturday, Kentucky made a mid-game change at the most important and most difficult position in sports when starting quarterback Brock Vandagriff was shown the bench at halftime and replaced by backup Gavin Wimsatt. Neither did much and Kentucky has declined to declare who will be the starter going into the Tennessee game. Wimsatt is more of a running quarterback, which could challenge the Vols, but they’ve shown great gap discipline to hem in running quarterbacks for the majority of the season.
In the 24-10 loss to the Tigers, Vandagriff completed nine of 17 passes for 120 yards and an interception. Wimsatt was just as bad, completing three of 10 passes for 34 yards and an interception while running the ball nine times for 23 yards. That’s just bad quarterbacking no matter who is in the game.
Quarterbacking isn’t the only issue
Kentucky has been bad all around on offense. The Cats haven’t scored more than 20 points in an SEC game this season. Kentucky is on a three game losing streak. Tennessee has held all of its opponents to 19 points or less this season. This looks like a mismatch.
Kentucky is dead last in scoring offense with 19 points per game, last in touchdowns scored with 17 this season, 15th in yards per game with 308 per contest and 15th in yards per play with 4.9 gained per snap.
Tennessee has seen this defense before
If this game were earlier in the season, Tennessee fans should be more concerned. The Vols struggled with 3-3 defenses thrown at them by Arkansas and Oklahoma, but handling that should be old hat by now, especially with an off week to prepare for the Wildcats.
Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops is a great defensive coach that could have surprised the Vols with a new look, as he did in an upset win at Ole Miss in September. The Rebels run a similar offense to what Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel has implemented. However, a startlingly change-up doesn’t seem likely to happen now that the Vols have a better grasp of the 3-3 look.
Stoops could also try to confuse redshirt freshman Nico Iamaleava with different looks on the defensive front, but he’s had time to see just about everything and may (I said may) have turned the corner in the second half against Alabama.
For the record, Kentucky’s defense is seventh best in the SEC, allowing 310 yards per game. That’s respectable, but probably not good enough to beat the Vols since the Cats can’t score points on the other side.
History
There have been times – not often – in which I thought Kentucky had a good shot to beat Tennessee, but more often than not, that wasn’t the case. The Vols have beaten Kentucky 35 of the last 38 times these two teams have played. Ouch.
In fairness to Kentucky, this is their Super Bowl. They could right many of this season’s wrongs with an upset against the Vols, but that just doesn’t seem in the cards this year with a quarterback controversy, Stoops reportedly on the hot seat and a Tennessee team that has everything to play for.
Prediction: 35-11
