Given the way the season has played out fans can be forgiven if they're looking ahead to Kentucky's game against Tennessee in Neyland Stadium with some unease. That's probably an understatement.

When you consider the season-long ineptitude of the Kentucky offense and its inability to score touchdowns or sustain any kind of success, going on the road to that house of horrors against one of the nation's best defenses, the odds are not in the Cats' favor.

Nonetheless, this is still a team that beat Ole Miss on the road, so we've seen them capable of playing better football than they've shown recently. At the same time, Tennessee is ranked in the top-10 but the Vols' margin for error has been a lot more narrow than you might have expected when you watched them put up more than 50 on NC State early in the season.

Here are some keys to the game.

1. Stuff the run

If Kentucky is built to do anything great defensively it's stop the run. They have a big, experienced, physical defensive line led by Deone Walker and Tre'vonn Rybka and they're big at the next level as well.

At its best, Kentucky has looked like one of the best run defenses in the country. In the first six games of the year Kentucky held every single opponent under 150 yards on the ground. Not one of those opponents even reached four yards per carry on the team. They only allowed four rushing touchdowns in those six games.

As the season has continued, cracks have begun to show. Florida rushed for 197 yards (4.48 YPC) with five touchdowns on the ground and last week Auburn got its running game going to the tune of 326 yards on the ground with two more scores.

If Kentucky defends the run like it has the last two weeks the Cats don't have a chance of winning in Knoxville. It will be ugly. That might not make fans feel great, given the last two weeks. It may mean committing more players to the box and forcing Nico Iamaleava to beat them with his arm. He hasn't passed for 200 yards in any game played in the last month.

Slowing the Vols on the ground won't be easy. Tennessee has rushed for 1,691 yards and 22 scores in only seven games. They have rushed for more yards than they have passed for this year. Dylan Sampson is one of the nation's top rushers with 838 yards and 17 scores already.

If Kentucky fails to hold Tennessee under 200 yards rushing its difficult to see a path to victory.

2. Avoid penalties!

Penalty stats can be a little deceiving. Oftentimes the nation's best teams are heavily penalized. Kentucky doesn't have that kind of margin for error.

Given that it's very hard to see Kentucky scoring 20 points against a Tennessee defense that's only surrendering 11.6 per game on the season, the offense has to at least play clean.

Against Georgia, when the Cats nearly beat No, 1, Kentucky was penalized four times for only 23 yards. Against Ole Miss, in the Cats' biggest win in some time, UK was penalized three times for 30 yards.

This alone isn't the answer. We've seen Kentucky look very bad and avoid penalties, but before that Vanderbilt game Kentucky tended to play cleaner football than they have lately and penalties probably spoke to a mindset that was more locked in.

The offense isn't clicking well enough to play from behind the sticks so the Cats can't have self-inflicted mistakes.

3. Explosives

Kentucky has been one of the least explosive teams in college football this season. That was not part of the plan when Bush Hamdan was hired and this team was put together.

In fact, the pairing of Barion Brown and Ja'Mori Maclin as potential deep threats off play-action was one of the most intriguing things about this team. As it stands, Kentucky has found it difficult to even attempt those vertical shots, much less find a lot of success with them.

Opponents have 19 plays of 30 or more yards against Kentucky through eight games. The WIldcats only have eight. One 30-yard play per game is not getting it done given their outsized impact on results.

4. Defensive or special teams touchdown(s)

The matchup between Kentucky's offense and Tennessee's defense is so ugly on paper that it may be necessary for the Wildcats to score some points with its other units, and not field goals.

Consider that Tennessee hasn't given up 20 points a single time all season. Even Arkansas only mustered 19 in beating the Vols in Fayetteville. Granted, aside from Alabama, Tennessee hasn't exactly played a strong slate of offensive teams. But the point remains. Kentucky probably needs to not just get takeaways, but score on defensive or special teams returns. It may not even be enough to create turnovers that give you great field position, given the red zone scoring woes.