Tennessee Vols at Kentucky Wildcats: statsy game preview

Tennessee heads into a somewhat easier back half of its schedule this weekend with a road trip to Lexington to play the Kentucky Wildcats. Most of the season to date has been determining what the Vols can do against elite and rival teams where focus and motivation aren't issues and where the toolbox includes the kitchen sink. Now we're going to start figuring out how they'll do as comfortable favorites in a long season.

Here are my three keys to this game:

Don't gameplan your way into a close game. Everything suggests that the Vols, if they only play the way they've been playing against the elite teams on their schedule, should beat Kentucky fairly easily. But Tennessee may have been at its best against those great teams because they knew they had to be. If they go into the Kentucky game thinking they can just beat the Wildcats with talent and not have to do everything right, they could find themselves in a close game, which I fear would wreak havoc with a fragile collective mindset and tip the scales the wrong direction. If they instead decide that they'll need to do everything they can to win -- utilize Dobbs on designed runs, call a smart, aggressive game designed to keep the defense guessing, and still protect the ball and play a smart field position game -- they should win easily. But I don't think they're an elite team yet that can just roll out there with their base team, standard set of playcalls, and an average Saturday focus and run away with this game. They need to come in with a desire and intent to dominate.

Run, run, run, run, run. Tennessee hasn't played any team this season that is worse against the run than Kentucky. The running game is Tennessee's strength, so they should be able to go to that well whenever they want. They ran for nearly 400 yards against Bowling Green and over 250 against Florida, which is on the other end of the run defense continuum, so something between those two numbers should be the goal against Kentucky.

Limit Kentucky's passing game. Kentucky's passing game is dangerous, and Tennessee's pass defense has been suspect much of this year, so if there's a vulnerability it's here. The Vols will need to limit chunk passing plays by the Wildcats to make sure they don't sniff an upset. Tennessee did a better job of this against Alabama last week, but they'll need to do it again.

My prediction? Tennessee 38, Kentucky 20.

Here's the comparison chart. Tennessee's schedule to date is the 4th-most most difficult and Kentucky's is the 53rd-most difficult. If you're interested in advanced stats, you can find them here (Tennessee's | Kentucky's). They predict Tennessee 35, Kentucky 24.

					Comps				Result against Comps		Guess
					Closest Lower		Closest Higher		Closest Lower	Closest Higher
					Team		Team		Team	Team
	Rank	Value	Rank	Value	Rank	Value	Rank	Value
Tennessee rushing offense vs. Kentucky rushing defense	31	209.1	77	172.7	None		OK/BG			OK/BG	250
					None	None	73/44	171.4/147.8		129/399
Tennessee passing offense vs. Kentucky passing defense	86	206.7	75	232.3	AR/BG		FL/AL		AR/BG	FL/AL	220
					100/109	257.7/271.8	42/41	197.9/197.3	232/205	165/247
Tennessee rushing defense vs. Kentucky rushing offense	62	162.9	101	139.4	FL		BG		FL	BG	110
					107	126.7	79	161.1	109	124
Tennessee passing defense vs. Kentucky passing offense	91	248.3	44	253.1	FL		AR		FL	AR	250
					48	249.6	43	254.3	283	219
Tennessee scoring offense vs. Kentucky scoring defense	42	33.9	58	25.9	AR/BG		OK		AR/BG	OK	38
					64/81	26.4/28.5	30	20	20/59	17
Tennessee scoring defense vs. Kentucky scoring offense	53	24.7	93	24.7	None		AR			AR	20
					None	None	75	28.1		24