A weekly look at our upcoming opponent's recent history, with animated drive charts and links to SB Nation game pages.

This is a long post full of moving pictures and stats, so I'm putting the conclusions and predictions both at the beginning and at the end.

Conclusions

• Sort of like Vandy, Kentucky doesn't pass the ball very well, but they are quite a bit better than the Commodores on the ground. Expect them to attack by running the ball.
• Again, Kentucky suffers from the same sort of imbalance as Vanderbilt on defense (good against the pass, bad against the run), but they're better than the 'Cats at both. The Vols would be well-advised to return the favor and attack with the infantry.
• Punt and kickoff coverage will be key for the Vols, as Kentucky is quite good at both.
• Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke account for a huge percentage of Kentucky's offense. Stop those guys, and you stop Kentucky.

Predictions

• Tennessee 21, Kentucky 19.

Schedule and Animated Drive Charts

@ Miami (Ohio) RedHawks	9/5/09	win 42 - 0	coverage
Louisville Cardinals	9/19/09	win 31 - 27	coverage
Florida Gators	9/26/09	loss 7 - 41	coverage
Alabama Crimson Tide	10/3/09	loss 20 - 38	coverage
@ South Carolina Gamecocks	10/10/09	loss 26 - 28	coverage
@ Auburn Tigers	10/17/09	win 21 - 14	coverage
Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks	10/24/09	win 36 - 13	coverage
Mississippi St. Bulldogs	10/31/09	loss 24 - 31	coverage
Eastern Kentucky Colonels	11/7/09	win 37 - 12	coverage
@ Vanderbilt Commodores	11/14/09	win 24 - 13	coverage
@ Georgia Bulldogs	11/21/09	win 34 - 27	coverage

Kentucky and Tennessee against common opponents:

National Unit Rankings

Now on to the national rankings.

Offensive observations. Solid on the ground + horrid through the air = 87th in the nation in total yards per game and right smack dab in the middle in total points. Checking . . . yes, sorta like Vandy, except that Kentucky's rushing game is quite a bit better, which makes the Wildcats' total yards and points numbers much better as well.

Defensive observations. Horrid against the run + solid against the pass = middle-ish in total yards allowed and top third in points allowed. Checking . . . yes, much like Vandy again, except less horrid and more solid. The Commodores do rank higher in pass defense, but Kentucky appears to be a better team overall defensively. They're not that good on our side of the scrimmage line, though.

Special teams and turnovers observations. Uh-oh. Kentucky appears to have fairly decent special teams, especially when it comes to punt and kickoff returns.

Stastical Comparison

Here's how the two teams stack up against each other in each of the key statistical categories in Hooper's wizbang BlogPoll Computerer:

	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	OPPG	TO	3DD	RTT RANK
	54	35	11	60	64	20	41	28	56	23	36
	39	45	18	98	62	54	105	38	87	64	49

So Tennessee's compiled a mostly-better resume against a stronger schedule and has a chance to even up the win/loss column Saturday.

		Delta
SOS	35	10	45	SOS
TD	20	67	87	TO
TO	56	-2	54	TD
PED	11	94	105	PEO
3DD	23	39	62	3DO
PEO	64	-46	18	PED
3DO	64	0	64	3DD

According to that, we should make it harder on them than they should on us. We could have trouble in the passing game and on third down.

Players to watch for

Observations

Um, wow. That there's a whole lotta Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke. CobbLocke is a do-everything tandem, with Locke ranked 17th in the nation in all-purpose running and Cobb right behind him in the same category, tied at 28th. Cobb is also tied for 22nd in scoring with 8.4 points per game.

Running backs. Derrick Locke is averaging 82.10 yards per game, and he broke the 100-yard threshold against Vandy (144), Mississippi State (108), and Auburn (137). Randall Cobb adds another 43.6 yards on the ground.

Quarterbacks. Morgan Newton took over under center when Mike Hartline suffered an injury against South Carolina in the 5th game of the season. He's been averaging 88.6 yards through the air and 7.3 rushes and 14 yards per game. He has not completed a touchdown pass in six games, but he's rushed for two.

Receivers/Tight Ends. Randall Cobb is the team's leading receiver, getting 3.3 catches for 40 yard per game.

Defense. Linebacker Sam Maxwell and defensive back Calvin Harrison are responsible for Kentucky's solid pass defense with both of them ranked nationally in interceptions. Maxwell is particularly good, ranked 11th, as he's had interceptions in five different games this year. Other notables on defense are defensive linemen DeQuin Evans and Corey Peters and linebacker Micah Johnson.

Special teams. Kentucky is excellent on punt and kickoff returns. Why? Because of CobbLocke. Cobb ranks 16th in punt returns with an average of 13.27, and Locke ranks in kickoff returns 6th with 30.47. Oh, and you can't just not kick to Locke because Cobb's the other guy back there, and he ranks 45th with 25.17 yards per kickoff return. Cobb's returned one punt for a TD, and Locke's returned on kickoff for a TD.

Head to Head Comparisons

			Best Comparable	Result Against Best Comparable	Prediction
UT rush v. KY rush defense	164.91 (#48)	179.27 (#98)	Memphis (176.45) (#96)	137	200
UT pass v. KY pass defense	226.09 (#48)	176.09 (#14)	Vanderbilt (164.92) (#9)	221	220
KY rush v. UT rush defense	141.27 (#60)	196.18 (#20)	Auburn (219.55) (#11)	224	220
KY pass v. UT pass defense	171.91 (#13)	146.73 (#112)	Vanderbilt (146.33) (#114)	174	170
UT scoring offense v. KY scoring defense	30.64 (#33)	22.18 (#38)	South Carolina (20.73) (#28)	31	21
KY scoring offense v. UT scoring defense	20.73 (T-#28)	27.45 (T-#60)	Georgia (27.45) (T-#60)	19	19

Again, this is not math, but an informed guess. UT rushed for 137 yards against Memphis, but the gameplan focused heavily on the pass, and I don't think that makes sense here, so I'm going with 200 yards rushing. We passed for 221 against Vandy, and although I think we'll lean on the ground game even more against Kentucky, the Wildcats are not quite as good as the Commodores, so I'm guessing about the same yards through the air.

We held Auburn to 224 yards, and although Kentucky has Locke and Cobb and a bit of a running QB, you might have heard on the podcast last night from the Kentucky guys that most of their yards are gained in bite-sized chunks rather than huge plays. With Janzen Jackson back, hopefully we can contain Kentucky's rushing game to about the same degree we did Auburn's. Yeah, I know that "wasn't very well." I'm just hoping for not worse.

Vandy and Kentucky are essentially the same team when passing the ball, so I'm guessing we can hold them to 170 yards or so.

Kentucky and Georgia are tied in scoring offense, and Georgia got quite lucky on non-offensive scoring, so I'm going with 19 points for Kentucky as well. And although we scored 31 points against South Carolina, we were helped with turnovers and great starting field position, so I'm backing that 31 points down to 21.

Conclusions

• Sort of like Vandy, Kentucky doesn't pass the ball very well, but they are quite a bit better than the Commodores on the ground. Expect them to attack from the ground.
• Again, Kentucky suffers from the same sort of imbalance (good against the pass, bad against the run) as Vandy on defense, but they're better at both. The Vols would be well-advised to return the favor and attack with the infantry.
• Punt and kickoff coverage will be key for the Vols, as Kentucky is quite good at both.
• Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke account for a huge percentage of Kentucky's offense. Stop those guys, and you stop Kentucky.

Predictions

• Tennessee 21, Kentucky 19.