First Scouting Report: Can Kentucky football extend its hold over Missouri?
An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next football game:
The opponent
No. 20 Kentucky (5-1, 2-1 SEC) will play host to No. 21 Missouri (5-1, 1-1 SEC) on Saturday, Oct. 14, at Kroger Field (seating capacity 61,000):
The game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. and be carried by the SEC Network.
Coach Eli Drinkwitz’s Tigers lost to LSU 49-39 Saturday in Columbia.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with Missouri 9-4 and has won seven of the past eight meetings.
UK coach Mark Stoops is 7-3 vs. Missouri.
Tigers head man Eli Drinkwitz is 1-2 vs. Kentucky.
Most recent meeting
Kentucky quarterback Will Levis threw three touchdown passes, two of them to freshman wideout Dane Key, and the Wildcats held off a late Missouri charge to win 21-17 on Nov. 5, 2022, at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
The game’s decisive play came when UK, clinging to a four-point lead, lined up to punt from its own 41-yard line with 2:34 left in the game.
Long snapper Clay Perry’s snap sailed high over the head of UK punter Colin Goodfellow. However, Goodfellow raced back back to the Kentucky 4-yard line and retrieved the ball. Turning forward to kick, Goodfellow got his punt off a milli-second before Missouri linebacker Will Norris planted him.
The game officials ruled that Goodfellow had not left the tackle box and, once he began the punting motion, was protected from physical contact. A resulting roughing the kicker penalty on Mizzou gave Kentucky a first down and allowed the Wildcats to run off all but the final 38 seconds of the game.
Subsequently, the play has led to a rule change. In 2023, there is no penalty for hitting a punter if the kicker is displaced more than 5 yards from the position of the snap.
Know your foe
1. Eli Drinkwitz decided late in 2022 to cease running the Missouri offense. That paved the way in this past offseason for the Mizzou head man to bring on former Fresno State offensive coordinator Kirby Moore, 33, as the new Tigers offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
So far, the hiring of Moore has yielded boffo returns. Entering Saturday’s game against LSU, Missouri was 15th in the FBS in passing yards a game (304.4), 30th in total offense (451.4) and 52nd in points a game (32).
A former Boise State wide receiver, Moore is the younger brother of Los Angeles Chargers offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, the former BSU star quarterback.
2. Kirby Moore’s biggest impact at Missouri has been on quarterback Brady Cook. A season ago, the 6-foot-2, 207-pound Cook, a product of St. Louis, threw for an average of 210.7 yards a game, completed 64.8% of his throws and threw for 14 touchdowns versus seven interceptions.
Going into Saturday’s game with LSU, Cook was throwing for an average of 293.6 yards a game, completing 74.5% of his passes and had thrown for 11 touchdowns and no interceptions.
Against the Bayou Bengals, Cook completed 30 of 47 passes for 411 yards and two touchdowns but also threw his first two picks of the season, including one that Major Burns turned into a 17-yard pick six to seal LSU’s win.
Cook’s favorite target has been wide-out Luther Burden. Now a sophomore, Burden, a five-star recruit in the class of 2022 out of St. Louis, entered play Saturday with 43 catches for 644 yards and five touchdowns.
Against LSU, Burden caught 11 passes for 149 yards.
Last season, Cook completed 18 of 26 passes for 143 yards versus Kentucky and ran for two touchdowns. Burden caught six passes versus the Cats in 2022 for 60 yards.
3. There was a time when Missouri getting to play Kentucky in the game immediately after the Wildcats faced SEC East titan Georgia would have been advantageous placement for the Tigers.
In the first six seasons (2013 through 2018) of the Mark Stoops coaching era, UK went 0-6 in the contests immediately after the Wildcats played Georgia.
However, starting in 2019, Kentucky has won three of the past four games that have followed Georgia on the Wildcats’ schedule.
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