On Saturday night, Tennessee football travels to Lexington to tussle with Kentucky. The Vols will meet the Wildcats at Kroger Field at 7:45 p.m. ET, airing on SEC Network.
Ahead of each Tennessee game, we’ll talk to someone who covers the Vols’ opponent that week. This week, CatsIllustrated‘s Justin Rowland talked the Wildcats’ overtime loss to Texas, the quarterback play for UK and what Kentucky will have to do to pull off an upset.
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Kentucky has hung around against some good teams, but the record still sits at 2-4 (0-4 SEC). How would you assess where this team is at at this point in the season?
“The way I’ve put it is this. This team is probably deserving of the No. 16 spot in any SEC power ranking. That’s fair. But they aren’t as bad as the worst team in the SEC usually is and do have the ability to play well at times.
“The personnel isn’t at the level of the top teams in the league but they did address deficiencies from last season. The run game was upgraded because they invested a lot in the offensive line. They have been up and down in SEC play but the improvement has been real. For the first time in a very long time there’s real optimism regarding the offense. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still some struggles ahead but Cutter Boley has looked pretty good the last two games against Georgia and Texas. He’s at least somebody worth continuing to develop. Having said that, the offensive results have not been good enough overall, no matter who has been at quarterback.
“Defensively there have been too many missed tackles. I’m not sure the back seven personnel is as good as we have sometimes seen at Kentucky but it’s not a bad roster. They have some disruptive players up front.
“The problems this year have mirrored many of the problems in recent years as the slide has occurred. Even when the team has played well things have spiraled or they have shot themselves in the foot at inopportune moments.”
Although it ended in a loss, can you sense any extra juice around the program after the Texas game compared to where it was at beforehand?
“It was certainly a spirited effort and the fan base was energized for it. After the game Stoops sounded pretty deflated. He was very conciliatory toward the fan base in understanding their buy-in and having to deal with the results and many have said he sounded different.
“There are two things going on though. There’s the speculation about Stoops with his contract and the future but also the offense has quietly started to look like a competent operation with a talented young arm. That would be the juice. But at the end of the day 0-4 in the SEC after a loss that should have been a win might have been deflating. We will see on Saturday.”
How has QB Cutter Boley played since he took over the offense? What has he done well? Poorly?
“He’s been just fine the last two weeks. Boley has completed 70% of his passes for 242 yards per game with a 2-2 touchdown to interception ratio the last two games against Georgia and Texas.
“The defenses were very different in those games and so the gameplans were different. His average depth of target against Texas was only about 4.5 yards so it was a lot of dink and dunk. That was respect for the Texas pass rush’s ability to take over the game and the Horns’ talent edge on the perimeter and really everywhere. But he has really seemed to start to mature as a quarterback. He did make one bad decision on the run to loft one off his back foot that was picked. Things did spiral a bit earlier in the season but the last two games have been very promising.
“The book on Boley as I see it is that he has exceptional natural ball placement ability. Probably the best Kentucky’s had since Andre Woodson in that particular area. Receivers love playing with him because he gives them a chance. He has shown he is a tough young guy who can take a hit and will keep going. When he’s on the move he has the ability to hurt a defense and you haven’t often felt like that with Kentucky quarterbacks lately. Sometimes he is a little slow in the pocket or takes longer when the pressure is bearing down and it has led to some quick bad decisions. He’s still a work in progress but has been a strength and not a weakness against two quality defenses. Georgia didn’t present as much pass rush so I was eager to see how he fared against Texas, as pass rush had bothered him more. But the game plan helped him and he was mostly smart and accurate.
“He isn’t far enough away from some bad decisions to put that concern to rest, though. Most of the outstanding issues could be largely attributed to inexperience. I think most Kentucky fans would say he’s worth developing for next year.”
What has proven to be the strength of this Kentucky team? What is the most glaring issue?
“It’s tough to say there has been one consistent strength. There have been strengths one week that have been weaknesses the next. The passing game has started to look promising lately but it was a weakness earlier. The run game was strong early but its impact has diminished lately. The pass rush has flashed in the first and last games but the defense struggled with that and missed tackles in all the games in between. I think that’s a reflection of what we pretty well knew about this team personnel-wise going into the season. There weren’t any glaring weaknesses aside from questions about Zach Calzada and the losses at receiver but if you were to list the top 10 players on the team it wouldn’t stack up well with most SEC teams. So the middling talent level is probably the biggest reason for that.
“The biggest issue right now is that even when Kentucky plays well it shoots itself in the foot or doesn’t capitalize on opportunities in key situations. It had become a program where you started to expect them to make plays to win (the historical aberration as Tennessee fans know) and that is no longer the case.”
How do you see this one playing out? What will UK have to do to pull off the upset?
“It’s hard to predict a win against Tennessee under any circumstances given the series history and I’m probably a believer in the fact that some of these series do seem to take on lives of their own. If Kentucky plays like it did against Texas and Tennessee plays its B game, I think it will be relatively close in the second half but I still wouldn’t outright predict a Kentucky win. It wouldn’t surprise me if Boley has a big game and it becomes more of a shootout than people expect or if he struggles and the team comes out worse.
“To win the game Kentucky has to capitalize on all its scoring opportunities. If the defense or special teams gives it a short field that needs to be a touchdown. Failing to get points near the goal line killed them twice against Texas. Tennessee’s offense is much better than Texas’ so the offense will have to produce more points to keep up. I’ll pick Tennessee by 10.”
