Tennessee Volunteers vs. Kentucky Wildcats: Game Preview

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

Sketchy Conclusions

• Kentucky can punt and defend against the pass.
• Kentucky pretty much can't do anything else. They're bottom quartile in every offensive category and bottom half in every non-passing defensive category.
• Comparing them to Tennessee's 2011 opponents, the Wildcats are, with the exception of pass defense, most similar to Buffalo and MTSU.
• On the other hand, Tennessee is coming off a rare good news game, and we don't yet know how they'll follow it up. Do they give it its due and no more, or do they subconsciously think that turning the corner is the end of the race?

Predictions

• Tennessee 31, Kentucky 10.

Schedule and Animated Drive Charts

Hmm. As bad as Kentucky has sounded through the highlights and recaps of the season, you can almost look at their schedule and say, well, okay. Let's hope there's no real shame in losing to Florida, LSU, South Carolina, and Georgia. Louisville and Mississippi State are not good, true, but that Georgia score of 10-19 looks uncomfortably close to our 12-20. Yeah, caveats for injuries and catching teams at different times and all that, but still. The one glaring difference is the Vanderbilt game, which we won and they lost big. Speaking of . . .

Whoa. Kentucky crossed midfield only twice against the 'Dores, and once only barely. And Vandy scored 38 and looks like they left a score on the table just before the half.

That Tennessee-Vandy drive chart may be the weirdest I've seen in a long time. You have to love how the Commodores' drives ended: one Fumble!, three Interceptions!, two FG Misseds! That 80-yard TD drive after Vandy took the lead may have been the most important drive of the season.

Anyway, the conclusion I draw from those two drive charts is that Vandy may have simply played much better against Kentucky than it did against Tennessee. How much of that had to do with the opponent is kind of hard to tell.

National Unit Rankings

Offensive observations. Hey, for Kentucky #opportunityreallyisno-where, at least on offense. Seriously, that's horriterribaddiblen. Bottom quartile in every single offensive category. Bless their little blue hearts.

Defensive observations. Here's something. Kentucky does a good job against the pass, both in yards and efficiency. Other than that, though, they're middle of the pack on everything else except rushing defense, at which they're very bad.

Special teams and turnovers observations. The Wildcats are averaging nearly 40 net yards per punt, which is enviable. The rest of their special teams? Not so enviable.

Players to Watch

Offensive Observations. Nobody on offense ranks nationally. This chart says that Morgan Newton is their quarterback and leading rusher and that when he can, he throws to receivers La'Rod King and Matt Roark.

Defense. This is better. Senior linebacker Danny Trevathan is real. He not only ranks 3rd in the nation in tackles per game, he's tied for 18th in interceptions per game. The Winston Guy also tackles people.

Special teams. The punter's name would stymie even the best Wheel of Fortune champion. He punts well, too. But that empty All-Purpose Runners box is hilarious. Did we see a running back anywhere in any of the player charts?

/looksforthethirdtime

No, we did not. The NCAA's site does show nine of them on the roster, so it's not like they've already hired Mike Leach, but wowzamighty. For comparison's sake, Tauren Poole's name shows up in our box twice, and Marlin Lane's shows up once.

Head to Head Comparisons

			Comps	Result Against Comps	Prediction
UT rush v. Kentucky rush defense	92.73 (#117)	194.27 (#100)	Buffalo/MTSU (186.82/210.90) (#92/107)	199/120	160
UT pass v. Kentucky pass defense	245.09 (#44)	191.91 (#21)	Georgia/Arkansas (182.18/196.09) (#13/28)	290/238	260
Kentucky rush v. UT rush defense	159.09 (#66)	117.09 (#98)	Arkansas (146.36) (#72)	254	120
Kentucky pass v. UT pass defense	192.64 (#22)	146.55 (#110)	LSU (167.64) (#103)	146	150
UT scoring offense v. Kentucky scoring defense	21.55 (#101)	26.27 (#60)	Buffalo (28.27) (#73)	41	31
Kentucky scoring offense v. UT scoring defense	23.73 (#46)	16.36 (#117)	Buffalo (21.64) (#100)	10	10

As always, these are informed guesses rather than mathematical calculations, and the general analytical framework is this: We are averaging X in a certain category. The opponent averages Y against that, which is most closely comparable to some identified previous opponent, against whom we did Z. All of that leads to an informed guess labeled as Prediction. The less data you have, the more sketchy the guess, and the guesses range from ALL CAPS SKETCHY WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS at the beginning of the season to merely lower case sketchy for the last game.

This week's example: We're averaging nearly 93 yards on the ground per game. Kentucky gives up about 194 on average, making them the 100th-best rush defense in the nation. Buffalo is eight spots better, and MTSU is seven spots worse, and against them we got 199 and 120, respectively. Average those out and you get 160.

This week's counter example: We're allowing nearly 160 yards on the ground per game, and Kentucky's getting about 117, which puts them at 98th in the nation. The closest comp is Arkansas, who gets and ranks 146 and #72. The Hogs rushed for 254 yards against us. Yeah, they're better than Kentucky, but that's a fluky number, so I'm just going to guess that Kentucky gets their average and be done with it.

So Kentucky:

• Stops the run like Buffalo and MTSU;
• Stops the pass like Georgia and Arkansas;
• Rushes like Arkansas (not as good as it sounds)
  
• Passes like LSU (also not as good as it sounds); and
• Allows points and scores like Buffalo.

Sketchy Conclusions

• Kentucky can punt and defend against the pass.
• Kentucky pretty much can't do anything else. They're bottom quartile in every offensive category and bottom half in every non-passing defensive category.
• Comparing them to Tennessee's 2011 opponents, the Wildcats are, with the exception of pass defense, most similar to Buffalo and MTSU.
• On the other hand, Tennessee is coming off a rare good news game, and we don't yet know how they'll follow it up. Do they give it its due and no more, or do they subconsciously think that turning the corner is the end of the race?

Predictions

• Tennessee 31, Kentucky 10.