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Published Oct 18, 2020
Buy or sell: Your hot takes on Kentucky football
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Justin Rowland  •  CatsIllustrated
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@RowlandRIVALS

For the second consecutive week I requested your hot takes on Kentucky football on Twitter.

Here are many of them, along with how I'm feeling about those takes.

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Buy. Based on the little I've seen from McClain it's tough to get too enthusiastic or have too much confidence on this point, but I can go with it. Rodriguez is definitely number one and I like McClain's combination of shake and bake with more tackle breaking ability than you'd expect. He's nifty between the tackles.

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Buy. The question is whether they can put it all together for enough of the season to make up for an 0-2 start. Maybe they won't, but that doesn't discount what you're saying. Kentucky's offense has not been worse than Florida's defense for much of this season. The last two weeks Kentucky's defense has been as good as Florida's offense for much of the year. That's going to be a tough game in Gainesville on the heels of a brutal stretch, though.

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Buy, buuuut... It's been a really weird year for UK and turnovers. Not forcing any in the first two games? Outlier. Forcing ten in six quarters? Flat out weird. At least we know they're capable of forcing mistakes and capitalizing so that bodes well, but turnovers are pretty flukey and unpredictable in my experience. They will need to be +3 to have a chance against UGA or Bama and that's a big ask.

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Torn. If they win one, it's going to be Florida. I just do not see them beating Georgia or Alabama. That will rub some the wrong way, but I'm typing this answer as I watch Georgia and Alabama play one another and those teams have guys who are just different. UF's defense is questionable enough that UK's style of play -- keeping the UF offense off the field as much as possible -- could be a really interesting variable, and they usually match up with the Gators pretty well. I'm leaning sell because you listed three games and I think they only have more than a small chance in one of the three, but they could definitely be competitive in Gainesville.

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Sell. Hate to keep beating a dead horse when it's just an opinion, but not sure they score more than 10 against Georgia.

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Sell. But a very good hire. He's done a tremendous job. What's so impressive is college football analysts and opposing coaches don't even say things like, 'Can you believe he's doing that at Kentucky?" Because it's not smoke and mirrors. He's done it the right way, and before he got to Kentucky they said it was one of the hardest places to win. I'll grant it's one of the SEC's best hires over the past 20-25 years. To say best of all-time in college sports is a little aggressive until he at least wins the East. I would say Gary Pinkel at Missouri is a recent comparison that I'd say has achieved more.

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Buy. Nothing too extreme in there. Agree on Vito showing, so far, that he should have been a four-star through the finish. He's going to be good.

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Sell. I'm being lame and playing the odds here, but that's a really spicy take. I like it. My guess is they do a good job of shutting Missouri down, though.

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Sell. But I admire your boldness and if it happens I'll remember where I saw it first.

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Buy. Get him on the field. They need big plays and he looks like he can give them. Looks like he's have an adaptable skill set. Has taken to the college level quickly and can probably take on a lot.

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Sell. But beating Georgia, Alabama, and Florida to end the season would go down as the wildest thing I've ever seen.

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Sell. I think Beau's going to be a good player for Kentucky but he's the No. 3 QB right now and you have to believe the coaches think he's in a good spot biding his time and developing. Productive is a tough word. They're not asking Wilson to put up big numbers.

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Buy. Maybe he will be, but up-and-coming assistants and coordinators generally move pretty quickly. Not a lot of Bud Fosters out there. Not sure what his ambitions are or how settled he and his family want to be in Lexington. But playing the odds, I'd say he'll have some hard choices to make before long.

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Buy. I'm not saying it as a really big critique because I don't think there are too many glaring examples of it, but I think he's had a tendency to err with the older players. That's a healthy process in some respects but he could turn some of the young guys loose a little sooner.

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Buy, buuuut... By the same token, who knows how the Mississippi State game would have played out without the turnovers? The turnovers by Tennessee set the tone for this one. Turnovers are very telling for Kentucky this year, most years, and for every team.

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Sell but hate to do it. It's one of the better lines in the country but would not quite put it there with Alabama. They had a great second half. Really exceptional the way they took over against Tennessee.

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Depends on who you're saying that to. I'm not saying he's one of the SEC's best quarterbacks. The playbook is not nearly as daunting as what some other quarterbacks are running in terms of the pass game. If he goes 10/15 for 150 yards and a touchdown that's a great game for what Kentucky needs from him. So, yeah, the standard is different. But my point is how many games has he actually lost for Kentucky? He didn't do much against A&M or Tennessee in '18, the same year he did a ton to win at Florida. He's also won at Tennessee and has a Citrus Bowl. He's 15-5 overall, 7-5 in SEC play, and does some positive things. I'm tapping out of the "he's great," or "he's no good" sides. He'll leave a positive legacy at Kentucky.

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Have touched on this in other responses. I think the matchup could again be solid for Kentucky. They're going to be tough to stop but the Gators do appear to have some flaws UK can exploit. There's also the fact that UK really gets up for this game. Playing Bama the week before is a complicating factor.

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Sell but he's going to be really good. And I'm only selling because Jordan Wright won SEC Defensive Player of the Week last week and Boogie Watson is doing some big-time things as well. They've got a great group of players there.

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Sell. But they would obviously have a much better record.

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Buy. Okay, getting bold with this one. I like the amount of returning defensive talent UK is lining up for the years ahead and it feels like UK has gotten to a point where they're competitive every year. I'll say one of these years Stoops gets it done.

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Buy. Auburn isn't very good. But they played well against Kentucky and the 'Cats were very sloppy. One thing I would caution is that just because Kentucky has played really well the last two weeks doesn't mean they won't have down games in the future. I think the SEC is more even than ever at least through teams ranked 3rd and 13th in the league's power rankings as I'd have them. Lots of teams could beat most others on a given day.

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Buy. Has to be painful for you to type that but they probably would be.

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Sell. But in terms of what they have actually done at Kentucky, it's not as far off as you would think. Bryant didn't have a lot of great records in SEC play either.

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