It’s judgment week in Lexington.
The Kentucky Wildcats return home to Kroger Field on Saturday after getting trampled in Starkville. The Wildcats were outplayed, outcoached, and out hustled by Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs and we will now find out what kind of resiliency this club has as they enter the most important part of the schedule.
No matter how you slice it, Kentucky is right where they need to be as they sit at 5-2 and an eight-win regular season and a winning conference record are still very achievable goals. For this to happen, Mark Stoops must beat a member of the SEC East Big Three (Georgia, Florida, Tennessee) for the first time in his tenure.
The Vols will roll into Lexington with a winless conference record and a three-game losing streak where they have yet to score an offensive touchdown. Butch Jones is entering his final days in Knoxville and a loss to the Wildcats could send him into the unemployment line.
In July, this was the biggest game on the schedule. In the last week of October, this is still the biggest game on the schedule. It’s time to learn more about the Volunteers and here we’ll give you reasons why Kentucky is the favorite over the Big Orange.
Offensive Ineptitude
Entering the season, Butch Jones and Tennessee made a move at offensive coordinator as Mike DeBord left to become the play-caller at Indiana. This would be the program’s third offensive coordinator since Jones took over in 2013. Instead of an outside hire, Tennessee surprisingly promoted tight ends coach Larry Scott to the coordinator role.
Scott, the former offensive tackle at USF, was best known for being named the interim coach at Miami when the school relieved Al Golden of his duties. Scott would lead the Hurricanes to a 4-2 record to close the year including a 4-1 mark in ACC play.
Scott was named the tight ends coach at Tennessee in 2016 and he hadn’t been in charge of an offense since being a high school coach in Florida in 2004.
So for Butch Jones, entering the biggest year of his coaching career, to have a first time offensive coordinator with a brand new quarterback seemed like a strange move.
The Vols have played two quarterbacks and the results have been mostly awful. If you take out the opening game comeback against Georgia Tech, Tennessee has yet to score more than 20 points against FBS competition. In games where they put points on the board, the success did not come until the second half. The Vols only posted seven first half points against Georgia Tech and had only three points entering the fourth quarter against Florida.
This has been the worst offense in the SEC and will be the biggest reason why Butch Jones will be coaching at a different school next fall.
Quarterback Shuffle
Tennessee did not announce this season’s starter until moments before they started the season against Georgia Tech as junior Quinten Dormady and redshirt freshman Jarrett Guarantano competed for the spot all spring and fall. Dormady was a pocket passer who was known for his accuracy and experience in the system. Guarantano was blue-chipper from New Jersey who was going to give the Vols the dual-threat element that Joshua Dobbs displayed the last three seasons.
Dormady won the job, but the accuracy we were all expecting just wasn’t there. The Texas native only completed more than 60% of his passes in one of five starts. Dormady threw only six touchdowns and with the offense laboring combined with the five interceptions he tossed against Georgia and Florida, the coaching staff decided to make a move.
Jarrett Guarantano has made two starts and the offense has gotten worse. Guarantano has been surprisingly bad when he’s decided to run the football as he’s only averaging 3.4 yards per carry on non-sack rushing attempts. Add in the fact that he’s taken 13 sacks and this offense is finding themselves in bad situations more often than not.
Guarantano has been worse than Dormady in every statistical category and now the move to switch quarterbacks can be categorized as desperation. However, don’t expect Tennessee to roll with Dormady on Saturday as he’s currently nursing a shoulder injury and is listed as questionable for this week.
The quarterback situation in Knoxville is an absolute mess.
Rush Defense Inefficiencies
In 2016, the bottom fell out for Tennessee’s defense as both Kentucky and Missouri posted over 400 yards on the ground as the Volunteers ended last season in a tailspin as they gave up 218.5 yards per game on the ground. It was thought the only way to go was up in Bob Shoop’s second year as the defensive coordinator.
This has not been the case early in the season as opponents are averaging 5.1 yards per carry and are recording 247 rushing yards per game against the Vols.
Now these numbers are inflated because the Vols have face three top 10 rushing offenses (Alabama, Georgia, Georgia Tech) who all posted over 270 yards. However, each other FBS program not named UMass has posted at least 168 yards and are averaging around five yards per carry.
The rush defense has been flat out bad since Shoop took over and Kentucky doesn’t win this game unless their rushing attack gets going.
Lack of Defensive Line Production
Last year, Tennessee defensive end Derek Barnett was one of the best defensive players in college football. The junior from Nashville recorded double-digit sacks all three seasons on Rocky Top and was one of the most consistent players in college football. The biggest question for this Tennessee defense was how they would replace Barnett’s production.
It hasn’t gone very well.
Defensive ends Jonathan Kongbo and Kyle Phillips were both can’t miss recruits and the thought was that both juniors could combine to replace the production left by Barnett.
That has not been the case as the duo have only combined for 3.5 tackles for loss and one sack. Inside, tackles Reginald McKenzie, Jr. and Kendal Vickers have combined to produce a solid 7.5 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks.
But the play has been inconsistent and Tennessee is really lacking production from the edge. The lack of production has hurt Tennessee’s run defense and the pass rush is barely averaging two sacks per game.
With a ton of talent on the roster, Tennessee is not getting the play that is needed from its front four.
Workhorse Back
This offense has a lot of issues, but junior running back John Kelly is certainly not one of them. The junior from Michigan has scored six touchdowns on the ground as he’s averaging 4.9 yards per carry on 17.9 attempts per game.
But it doesn’t stop there for Kelly as he leads the Vols in receptions with 26 grabs on the season. Kelly has an 81.2% catch rate and averages right at 36 receiving yards per game.
This guy is an absolute stud and Kentucky should expect a heavy dose of the stud tailback on Saturday night.
Injury Bug
Last year during Tennessee’s downslide in the second part of the season, injuries decimated the Volunteers. Tennessee lost multiple starters on defense and if you could somewhat contribute the pitiful play in the second half of 2016 to that.
The Vols were optimistic heading into this season as they felt they were 100% healthy.
That didn’t last long.
Starting linebacker Darrin Kirkland, who missed most of last season, has been out of the lineup all year with a knee injury. Leading returning tackler safety Todd Kelly Jr. only played two games before being ruled out for the year because of a knee injury. Jauan Jennings was the team’s returning receiver and he suffered a broken win in the season opener. Three-year starting tackle Chance Hall hurt his knee in fall camp and never played a game this season. Dynamic kick returner Evan Berry hasn’t played since the opener.
The injuries have just been brutal for the Vols and heading into this week Tennessee will be without their top kicker, could be starting a true freshman at corner, and Butch Jones could have to burn quarterback Will McBride’s redshirt if Quinten Dormady cannot go.
Butch Jones has done a lot of bad things, but this two-year run of injury luck has just been brutal for the Vols.
Series Domination
As you all know well, Tennessee has dominated Kentucky the past three decades as the Vols have been victorious in 31 of the last 32 meetings. The series that used to be called the “Battle for the Beer Barrel” hasn’t been much of a rivalry since the early 1980s.
Tennessee, as a program, has been in a downward spiral ever since they let go of Phil Fulmer but they’ve have kept up their domination of border rival. Butch Jones is 4-0 against Kentucky and has won each game by double-digits. Under Jones, Tennessee is averaging 44.5 points per game including scoring at least 49 in the last three seasons. Joshua Dobbs was the starting quarterback for each of those contests and every Kentucky supporter should be very thankful he is no longer taking snaps in Knoxville.
Tennessee leads the all-time series 79-24-9 but, somehow, the Wildcats own the largest victory when they beat the Vols by a score of 56-0 in 1893. Even in the desert, Kentucky has underperformed expectations in this series. Kentucky is 1-9 in its last 10 against the spread with Kentucky’s only cover happening when the Wildcats knocked off the Vols in 2010.
Mark Stoops and Kentucky have been very good when favored in SEC games. Since Stoops took over in 2013, UK has been favored in five SEC contests and the Wildcats have yet to lose one of those straight up while covering three.
Kentucky can put a lot of demons to bed on Saturday night.
