Ten Friday Thoughts from Cats Illustrated publisher Justin Rowland on the eve of arguably the program's biggest game in a couple of generations...
A win here could change Kentucky football forever ... Every single time we talk about this game it doesn't have to be in the context of how big an underdog Kentucky is. For a moment just be a college football fan enjoying one of your favorite seasons ever because your team is one of the stories of the season.
If Kentucky were to beat Georgia then it really could change the program forever. It wouldn't immediately give Kentucky the brand power to go beat out UGA, Alabama, Ohio State, or Clemson for a lot of four- or five-star recruits.
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But there'd be a case for UK as the No. 1 team in the country. The Cats would not only have a shot at the playoff. They would have an inside track and could probably get in with one loss elsewhere (although they would probably have to beat Alabama in the SEC Championship Game if they got there at 11-1). This would be the kind of win that completely changes perceptions. Fans of the sport across the country would not soon forget the outcome. It would probably be the upset of the college football season.
This is the kind of win that people around the country would forever associate with UK. Well over a decade later we still remember South Carolina beating Alabama early in the Nick Saban era. These types of upsets of No. 1 on the road do not happen very often.
College Gameday in Athens ... Ideally if you draw the College Gameday crew because you're winning a lot it's in something other than a game with a 24-point spread, but it's good press no matter what. Even if every single regular or guest analyst picks Georgia as they likely will. The ESPN crew does a good job of covering all angles of a game and how teams got to that point and it's also clear that Kirk Herbstreit has an affinity for Mark Stoops. They'll talk Kentucky up on a long national program that kicks off the day's games, and everyone watching will know that No. 11 Kentucky is one of the two teams in the biggest game of the day.
It will be interesting to see what content the show's producers have planned. They could spotlight Josh Paschal because of the tremendous season he's having, with an eye on his battle with cancer. Perhaps Kenneth Horsey's heart history and his battling back to make a huge impact in the SEC. Perhaps John Schlarman's role in helping the program forge the identity it now has. Anything but Will Levis eating unpeeled bananas or drinking coffee with mayonnaise.
I watched some of the UK-UGA content on ESPN yesterday and it's great publicity for the program. They're treating it like your typical big game of the week and not some Cinderella story.
Three Kentucky players who must step up ...
QB Will Levis - No brainer, right? Quarterback is one of the positions where Kentucky might have a chance to equalize things. There's no guarantee Levis or any QB will fare well in Sanford Stadium against this defense in what UGA will hype as a "must win" game. But he's got more talent than Stetson Bennett and has had some great moments this year. Levis must be his absolute best for UK to have a chance.
NTs Justin Rogers and Josaih Hayes - These two will count as one person here. They'll be teaming up to fill in for Marquan McCall. They've done so admirably since Bully has been out of action but this is their biggest test yet. Georgia's offensive line has been improving and the Bulldogs are going to run right at these guys to see if they're up to the challenge.
P Collin Goodfellow - It's not sexy to pick a punter here but Goodfellow is quietly averaging nearly 45 yards per punt since taking over four games ago. Any UK upset of UGA is going to include playing sound field position football, so this pick isn't shade at all. UK's going to need every bounce, maybe a coffin corner, and to avoid UGAs potentially dangerous return game. There are lots of hidden yards here. UGA has fared well in the field position game this season.
Gary Pinkel was fortunate not to have to go through a team like this ... This week I thought about Missouri coach Gary Pinkel. Earlier this year I noticed a lot of Mizzou fans were saying things like, "Mark Stoops is Kentucky's Gary Pinkel." A while ago I thought that was a great goal for Kentucky and Stoops, but now it's certainly a reality.
Pinkel went to two SEC championship games before Mark Stoops finally beat him and began a nice streak against the Tigers reaching through the Barry Odom era. But Pinkel never had to go through a team like this UGA squad in the East. He was fortunate enough to peak with his best teams in Columbia before Kirby Smart got that machine going.
Mizzou won the SEC East in 2013 and 2014. In 2013, UGA and UF were a combined 12-13. The next season UGA was 10-3 (6-2) and every other team in the division was unranked with UF only 7-5.
All Kentucky and Stoops can do is to continue to be in a position to capitalize when the opportunity is there.
Real reasons for optimism ... In a piece earlier this week I made an attempt to use widely agreed upon ingredients for upsets to research the potential for that upset to happen this weekend.
My takeaway after that research is there are some things that Kentucky fans can look to with real optimism. But in the grand scheme of things, in the big picture, there's an awful lot working in UGA's favor.
But let's humor that optimistic tendency in your fan DNA for a moment and I'll make the case for Kentucky to pull the upset.
Will Levis has the talent to make this interesting if he plays his best game. He's also shown the mental and emotional fortitude to make big plays in big situations.
Chris Rodriguez may be the best running back in the game. I think he probably is. Wan'Dale Robinson is definitely the best receiver who will play in the game. Kentucky's offensive line is the best that UGA has faced to this point in the season and the best it may face all season.
Kentucky also has, right there with or close to Clemson, one of the best defenses UGA will face this season.
Georgia has not proven, under Smart, that it is completely beyond shooting itself in the foot. They aren't upset often, but the Dawgs have not carried that aura of invincibility for years like Alabama.
The Bulldogs have played at an extremely high level this year. Are they due for even some small kind of emotional letdown or sloppy performance? Nothing has been close since the season opener against Clemson and usually even the very best No. 1-ranked teams end up having some difficult games, such as Alabama against Florida last year, or LSU against Auburn or Alabama the year before that.
Then there's the fact that this Kentucky team believes. You don't get to 6-0 (4-0) if there's a lot of doubt or dissention in the locker room.
But I think the main reason to hope the game is going to be close is how games between Stoops and Smart have been going. Two years ago when UK didn't have a quarterback wasn't it 0-0 into the second half? Last year it was a 14-3 game. The issue was UK couldn't present any kind of balance or even the semblance of it.
Freshman redshirt tracker ... Here are the number of games played by each Kentucky freshman so far in 2021...
Trevin Wallace (6)
Chauncey Magwood (5 - Redshirt Burned)
Kahlil Saunders (2)
Martez Thrower (2)
Jamarius Dinkins (1)
David Wohlabaugh (1)
Jager Burton (1)
La'Vell Wright (1)
Chris Lewis (1)
Trevin Wallace and Chauncey Magwood will be sophomores next season. That much is official. It's conceivable that Saunders could get there, too, just because of the injury to Octavious Oxendine pushing him up the depth chart with six games to play. Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald isn't going to play 70 snaps a game so it almost seems likely that Saunders is going to lose that redshirt. But time will tell.
More from national media on UK-UGA ... I thought a couple of ESPN writers did a nice job with this story — 'Mark Stoops has brought winning -- and fun -- back to Kentucky football'.
"The history Kentucky Wildcats football is an encyclopedia of what-ifs and almost.
What if Bear Bryant hadn't reached an impasse with Adolph Rupp and UK administrators and stayed in Lexington longer than eight seasons? What if Marty Moore had taken a knee against Clemson in the 1993 Peach Bowl? What if Mike Leach had stayed as Tim Couch's offensive coordinator for a third year? What if Jared Lorenzen had hung on to the ball against Florida in 2003? What if the Wildcats hadn't lost to South Carolina in 2007, the week before their upset win over No. 1 LSU?"
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The Georgia website on the Sports Illustrated network doesn't think too highly of Kentucky's chances this week...
"Kentucky is down three starters heading into this weekend's matchup, and despite the ranking, they haven't exactly played a murder's row just yet. They have the 53rd ranked strength of schedule to date compared to Georgia's No. 1 ranked schedule.
Kentucky has beaten a (3-3) Missouri team by 7 points. They beat the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga by 5 points. They have a 6 point win over South Carolina, and they have a 7 point win over Florida.
They haven't exactly dominated their mediocre schedule."
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DawgNation.com says UGA's quarterback situation is a "moot issue" against Kentucky...
"Bennett will make it 7-2 with a win over Kentucky on Saturday as the Wildcats have had turnovers issues at quarterback and are missing their No. 2 receiver in addition to having two key defensive linemen out.
Smart and his coaching staff can figure out their quarterback situation over next week’s open date leading into the Florida game the following Saturday."
The Pick: Georgia 34, Kentucky 10
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Tom Fornelli of CBSSports.com makes an identical 34-10 pick in favor of Georgia...
"Kentucky reminds me of Arkansas in a lot of ways. It's a physical team that can run the ball and play solid defense, but doesn't offer much threat in the passing game. A one-dimensional offense isn't going to have a lot of success against Georgia, and we saw what the Dawgs did to the Hogs a couple of weeks ago. I'm expecting something similar in Athens on Saturday. Georgia 34, Kentucky 10"
An incredible stat....
If Georgia beats Kentucky tomorrow then the Bulldogs will have a 12-game winning streak against the Wildcats.
Amazingly, that would be tied for the longest winning streak UGA has ever had against an FBS opponent.
The longest UGA win streak against any team all-time was against Mercer (1892-1941). The Bulldogs defeated Ole Miss 12 times in a row from 1977-1988. This is Georgia's third longest winning streak of all time and could move into a tie for second, and the longest streak against an FBS team.
That's nothing like that long and miserable streaks Kentucky had against Tennessee and Florida (and then Tennessee in Knoxville and Florida in Lexington). Those streaks are snapped and UK will want to break this one before it starts to get so long that it's all anyone talks about. And this streak mostly belongs to Stoops.
Unfortunately for Stoops in this series when he took over the job UK was not in a place to compete with UGA. As Stoops has improved Kentucky, Smart has improved UGA with a similar philosophy that has made an upset difficult.
More interesting facts on UGA here.
Other SEC games this weekend ...
Auburn at No. 17 Arkansas - Arkansas has looked like the better team based on everything I've seen this year. Auburn has had a way of winning these games against teams not at the very top of the West but the Hogs are just better unless there's an emotional letdown.
No. 20 Florida at LSU - This game is between the teams Kentucky defeated over the previous two weeks. Talent wise there are some similarities but Florida still has a pulse and LSU may be checking out.
No. 21 Texas A&M at Missouri - It will be interesting to see if the win against Alabama jump starts A&M's season. Mizzou has been awful this year on defense but this one could still be close if it's anything like the other games the Aggies have played this year.
Vanderbilt at South Carolina. This game may be for the bottom of the East. There were a number of UK-Vandy games competing for that honor over the years, but that's been a long time ago now.
No. 5 Alabama at Mississippi State - The Tide can't afford another loss if it wants to get into the playoff as it seemingly always does. The road was not good last week but Bama is a 17-point favorite so Vegas obviously thinks last week was a bit fluky in College Station.
No. 13 Ole Miss at Tennessee. This has the potential to be one of the most fun SEC games of the year given the way these teams are playing offense right now. Very big game for the Volunteers and new coach Josh Heupel.
Games of note beyond the SEC ...
Cincinnati is a 21.5-point favorite against UCF as the No. 3 team in the country and I think you have to start to think about the Bearcats as a very likely playoff team given how this year seems a bit different.
Seems like a big game for Steve Sarkisian at Texas. It will be interesting to see how the Longhorns come off that collapse against Oklahoma with the Oklahoma State Cowboys in Austin. Texas is a 4-point favorite and OSU's offense isn't very good but the Cowboys have a defense. The Texas offense vs OSU defense matchup will be really good.
Can Michigan State continue to win? The Spartans are 6-0, like Kentucky, but don't have a win on the level of Florida. They're on the road at Indiana.
I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago but Nebraska is actually playing pretty good football and is a 4-point road favorite against Minnesota. If the Cornhuskers win here it could propel them to a bowl game for the first time in a while.
Rutgers as a road favorite against Northwestern is interesting. Is Greg Schiano doing it again? They're 0-3 in the Big Ten but look like an improved team.
Duke-Virginia doesn't have any relevance for Kentucky and these are not great teams but UVA's offense has become a lot of fun to watch. Brennan Armstrong is having an incredible season with 2,460 yards and 17 touchdowns in the first half of the year.
Iowa puts its No. 2 ranking on the line at home against Purdue at home as an 11.5-point favorite.
No. 19 BYU has been one of the sport's surprises for me early in the season with a 5-1 record but the Cougars are a 6-point dog to Baylor on the road with the Bears also 5-1.
One of the sneaky good games of the day is 4-1 Pitt on the road at 3-2 Virginia Tech. Neither team is ranked although Pitt's Kenny Pickett has had a great year. The winner of this game will have the inside track to the ACC Championship Game.
On the other side of the league we've got NC State-Boston College, and the winner of that game will be the competition to Wake Forest for the title game bid from that side. Dave Doeren and Jeff Hafley are both doing a great job this year, the latter without QB Phil Jurkovec following an injury. Wake Forest is off this week but undefeated. They have a tough last month of the season schedule but UNC is a non-conference game and won't impact those standings.
UK's season opening opponent, ULM, is now 2-3 and a 32.5-point underdog to Liberty.
Terry Wilson's New Mexico team is now 2-4 (0-2 Mountain West) and a 10.5-point underdog against Colorado State.
It's a little tough to believe Oklahoma has survived everything they've seen to date given how close some of those calls have been. The win against Texas could serve as a springboard for OU to be something closer to the kind of team we expected them to be this year, and Caleb Williams at quarterback could give them that opportunity.
