Saturday’s Kentucky-Tennessee football game is a ‘prove-it’ game for the Wildcats
Seeing as how we find the entire concept of a “must-win” game as overdone, we will avoid labeling this weekend’s annual Kentucky-Tennessee football border war as a “must-win” for the host Wildcats.
Instead, let’s call it a “prove-it” game.
After all, Mark Stoops’ 5-2 club has plenty to prove when it lines up for Saturday’s 7 p.m. kickoff on ESPN if it wants to have the type of season it believed itself capable of before the 2023 campaign began.
First and foremost, the Cats must prove they can rebound from that nasty pre-bye, two-game losing streak. If the 51-13 beatdown from the top-ranked Bulldogs of Georgia in Athens was bad — and it was bad — the home field 38-21 drubbing at the hands of Missouri may have been worse.
Those back-to-back setbacks, along with an open date last week, prompted another sports cliche, the “players-only meeting.” When once asked about his team’s “players-only meeting,” San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich dismissively replied, “I hope they had a good talk.”
“I’ll keep what was said between all of us and my guys, but it was good,” said UK running back Ray Davis after Tuesday’s practice. “For us, we’re done talking. . . . What we do in the stadium will reflect what we’ve been saying.”
To do that, the Cats must first prove they can eliminate the penalties that aided their downfall against Mizzou. Especially the undisciplined ones. Not once but twice against Missouri, UK players were flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. That can’t happen.
And it certainly can’t happen Saturday considering Kentucky-Tennessee is a good, old-fashioned rivalry game, where emotions often run high.
“(Tennessee) does not like us a lot,” said UK offensive guard Kenneth Horsey this week. “And we’re a team that does not like Tennessee.”
Kentucky must prove it has a passing game that can complement a rushing attack in which Davis leads the SEC in rushing yards per attempt at 7.04. The pieces are there. Devin Leary threw better balls against Missouri, but dropped passes persisted. And once the Cats were forced to play catch-up, they had a difficult time protecting Leary.
“I’m not sitting there thinking I can’t throw the football,” offensive coordinator Liam Coen said Tuesday. “We want to throw the football. We want to execute, but maybe it’s the call. Maybe I’ve got to give them a little bit better opportunity, a higher percentage completion play, something like that.”
The Cats must also prove they have an answer for Josh Heupel’s high-tempo Tennessee offense. In 2021, Heupel’s first season as the UT coach, the Vols won a 45-42 shootout at Kroger Field. Last season in Knoxville, Tennessee steamrolled the Cats’ 44-6. That’s 89 points in two years.
“They’re a very efficient football team,” Stoops said Monday of the Vols.
And speaking of Tennessee, the Cats must prove they can stay competitive with their southern neighbor. Remember, Tennessee held the Cats under its thumb for 25 straight seasons before Kentucky engineered a 10-7 upset in the famous “Matt Roark” game of 2011. Stoops started out 0-4 versus the Vols before UK beat UT 29-26 in 2017 in Lexington. Kentucky won again in 2020, whipping Tennessee 34-7 at Neyland Stadium.
Mainly, Kentucky needs to prove it is in fact a good football team, one that jumped into the AP Top 25 at No. 20 after its 33-14 victory over Florida back on Sept. 30, and even remained in the rankings at No. 24 after the loss to Georgia on Oct. 7. The Missouri loss relegated the Cats back to the “also receiving votes” category.
So can Kentucky beat Tennessee? Sure it can. (Pre-Missouri, I predicted it would.) The Volunteers are 0-2 away from their home state, losing 29-16 at Florida on Sept. 16 and 34-20 last week at Alabama. They trailed Florida 26-7 at the half in Gainesville. They were outscored 27-0 in the second half in Tuscaloosa.
Tennessee is a good team. Despite the results against Georgia and Missouri, I still think Kentucky is a good team, too. Now it just has to prove it.
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