Kentucky football: Can Wildcats regroup after bye week?
After three quarters of their third game, the Kentucky Wildcats were 2-0 and held an 11 point lead over Florida. At the time 5-0 looked possible, 4-1 was likely.
Instead, the Wildcats are 2-3, with nine consecutive quarters of punchless offense and browbeaten defense. After a bye week, can Kentucky correct the ship and end up with a successful season. We revisit our Kentucky predictions for the rest of the season:
Arkansas: W
Granted, if the Arkansas that nearly beat Texas A&M gets the Wildcats who laid an egg against South Carolina, look out. But there’s little reason to suspect that Arkansas will follow a good game with another. Kentucky could just as easily get the Arkansas team that lost to San Jose State. It’s not as secure as it was two weeks ago, but this still looks like a victory.
Georgia: L
Even if Kentucky had gone 4-1 or even 5-0 to start the season, this game at Georgia was looking like a loss. Georgia rocked the Wildcats in Lexington for the East division crown last year, and there’s no real reason to think Kentucky can return the favor this fall (much less win the East).
Missouri: L
This is the game that looked like a toss-up in the preseason … but Mizzou is on its way to a season that will probably end with the Tigers in the top 20. Kentucky has won the past four games in the series and will host this one, but will be a fairly substantial underdog in this game. Unless the Tigers have some significant injuries between now and then, it looks like Kentucky takes the loss.
Tennessee: W
If Kentucky is indeed 3-5 (which looks likely), this is the game to either right the ship or fall off the rails. Tennessee thumped Kentucky last year, but this UT team looks substantially worse than last year’s squad. Playing the next month of football should do nothing to help, and Kentucky stands to get a much-needed win.
Vanderbilt: W
There’s a great amount of uncertainty of where Vandy will stand when UK visits on Nov. 16. By that point, the Commodores could be out of bowl contention and Derek Mason could be on the hot seat. Kentucky/Vandy games tend to be brutal, and this one could be a typical 12-7, 14-10 kind of game. But at this point, Kentucky still looks in better shape to grab the win.
UT-Martin: W
The only way this isn’t a win is if Kentucky comes into this game 2-8 and is just a broken team. And even then, it would probably still be a win.
Louisville: W
The Cardinals have shown out better than UK, but the Cardinals’ lack of depth should be apparent by the end of November. Meanwhile, the game is in Lexington and if Kentucky indeed has six wins in hand, this one feels like a Wildcat victory.
Seven wins would likely earn UK a spot in the Belk Bowl or somewhere similar. It’s not another 10-win season that Wildcats fans were dreaming of, but after the past couple weeks the guess here is that most Wildcat backers would take a 7-5 season in a minute.