To paraphrase the great Bob Dylan, seems like we’ve been down this way before.

Kentucky football heads into Gainesville on Saturday night as somewhere between a 3- and 7-point underdog, expected to battle gamely but ultimately fall to Florida in the first matchup of SEC play. Considering how the preseason and Week 1 went, Kentucky could be walking into a landmine … or walking into a perfect situation.

First, the bad. Kentucky’s offensive line was pretty woeful in Week 1. The last time Kentucky had a ground game as bad as the 1.9 yards per carry it had was … last year at Georgia. Now, Miami of Ohio might be a fine team but it’s not 2021 Georgia.

Kentucky also allowed 4 sacks in Week 1. The last time that happened was actually in the Citrus Bowl, when the Wildcats fielded a patchwork group that did just enough to win the game over Iowa. But that necessitated going plus-2 in turnovers and holding the other team to 17 points.

Kentucky’s running back situation is dicey. Chris Rodriguez Jr. is apparently still out for the Florida game and transfer Ramon Jefferson has been indicated as having an ACL tear, which takes him out of the mix. Add in that Jutahn McClain is banged up and Kentucky’s running back situation is senior Kavosiey Smoke, who hasn’t had a game with 15 carries since 2019, and sophomore La’Vell Wright, who has a dozen collegiate carries.

Add in that Florida just took down then-No. 7 Utah with mobile quarterback Anthony Richardson looking like the next in a long line of dual-threat QBs who have given Kentucky’s containment-based defense fits. Add in that the game is in Gainesville, where Kentucky has won once since 1979.

You can see why pundits are diving in to shower love on the Gators, who went from unranked to No. 12 in the AP poll. But is that bad for Kentucky … or is it good?

Mark Stoops’ Wildcat teams love to play the underdog role. Over the previous 6 seasons while Stoops has led a rebirth of Kentucky football, the Wildcats have won 14 games as underdogs. Yes, that does include that massive upset of 27-point favorite Louisville and Lamar Jackson in 2016, but several of Stoops’ upsets have come when Kentucky was an underdog by somewhere between a field goal and a touchdown.

And several have come on the road, where Kentucky won as a mild underdog at Missouri in 2016 (+6), at South Carolina in 2017 (+5), at Vanderbilt in 2017 (+2.5), in The Swamp in 2018 (+13.5), at Mizzou again in 2018 (+7.5), at Tennessee in 2020 (+6.5) and at Louisville in 2021 (+3).

Kentucky’s chip-on-its-shoulder sentiment spreads to the locker room. The Wildcats — particularly recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow — seem to draw daily motivation off of disrespect. Which makes playing a Florida team that the rest of the nation is slathering with respect a bit of fortuitous timing for Kentucky.

In recent years, the Kentucky-Florida series, once incredibly lopsided, has been fairly competitive. Kentucky has won 2 of the past 4 matchups. And in the past 8 matchups, the game has been decided by a single score 5 times.

And with the heaping of praise on Richardson, it’s easy to forget the big picture. After all, let’s remember that Richardson showed flashes of brilliance in pre-conference play last season but had maturity issues that surfaced in things like missing a game after injuring himself dancing at the team hotel.

Or that he’s not the only QB in the game. Will Levis had a hit-and-miss first game, but he also became the first Kentucky quarterback to pass for 300 yards in back-to-back season openers since Tim Couch. Solid company.

Indeed, if Kentucky has something extra in its pocket, it’s Levis’ veteran leadership. New offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello probably kept most of the bullets in his play-calling gun in Week 1 but he displayed numerous weapons for Levis, who also isn’t bad as a runner.

The rest of college football is piling on the Gators bandwagon. And that’s exactly the way Kentucky has liked it in recent years.

The guess here is that Levis finds a way — whether with his legs or with some big red-zone help from his tight ends or with freshmen Dane Key or Barion Brown making some big plays on the edge — to sneak UK through in this one. Richardson will hurt the Wildcats on the ground, probably several times. But bend-don’t-break is Stoops’ defensive MO.

And after a week of hearing how good it is, Florida’s talented but somewhat inexperienced squad could have a rude awakening to the realities of the SEC.

The prediction

Everybody else is picking the Gators. I’ll go Kentucky 24, Florida 21. Somebody’s got to stay on Marrow’s good side.