The Tennessee Volunteers have an enormous opportunity on Saturday night against the Kentucky Wildcats. A battle of top 13 teams in the initial College Football Playoff rankings, it’s a game with huge playoff implications for both teams, as well as SEC Championship Game stakes.
The No. 6 Wildcats’ only blemish this year is a 45-17 home loss to Alabama back in September. They sit at 7-1 (5-1) overall, with a couple of impressive 35-34 overtime wins over South Carolina and LSU in back-to-back weeks.
They’ve also picked up road wins at Texas A&M and Oklahoma this year. So, they’re not intimidated by going into a hostile environment. If anything, it appears to galvanize them.
But Neyland Stadium isn’t just anywhere. It’s the loudest stadium in the nation and a place where Kentucky has had extremely limited success over the decades. The Vols crushed a ranked Kentucky team 44-6 in 2022 in another “Dark Mode” game, which will be in effect on Saturday night as well.
Beyond the edge Tennessee has with the home crowd, the Vols will need to replicate the formulate we’ve seen from them the last month, and one that resulted in one of the best wins in all of college football this year in UT’s 26-10 clubbing of Alabama back on Oct. 17. Tennessee absolutely shut down Alabama’s running game and put it all on Keelon Russell’s shoulders. Russell did next to nothing, throwing for 147 yards and two picks in the loss.
Kentucky isn’t a team that’s going to sling it all over the yard. Kenny Minchey has one game with over 300 yards passing — 301 in the season opener against Youngstown State. He is averaging just 219.4 passing yards per game. Naturally, that’s more than Tennessee is getting out of its passing game, but the Vols have an elite rushing attack to power their offense. Kentucky leans on the run regularly, with a 278-160 run/pass split this year.
I just don’t see them having much success against Tennessee’s front seven, which has been excellent this year. That will put the game on Minchey’s shoulders, and I think the Vols will be up to the task to flip the script and force multiple turnovers (Minchey has 14 TDs to one pick).
On the other side of the ball, the Vols face another pretty good run defense. Alabama is 27th nationally at 108.0 yards per game; Kentucky is 30th at 113.2. But I think Tennessee’s offensive line and game plan has enough of a track record this year to prove it feels largely matchup proof, and DeSean Bishop is running through whoever tries to stop him.
Prediction: this is a game where Tennessee jumps ahead early and slowly squeezes Kentucky out over four quarters similar to how they did against Alabama. They get enough from George MacIntyre and the passing game, but it’s another week of “US Mail” stamped on Bishop’s backside, and the defense does the rest.
Tennessee 23, Kentucky 13
