UK-Missouri predictions: What the Wildcats must do to keep two streaks alive
It’s almost game time. Here are some final thoughts on how Kentucky’s game against Missouri might play out Saturday in Columbia, Mo.
Good streaks
All of the lead-up to last week’s game at Tennessee at some point circled back to the Wildcats’ long losing streak in Knoxville. So, it’d be unfair to ignore the streak UK has to its credit heading to Missouri: it hasn’t lost to the Tigers since 2014, head coach Mark Stoops’ second season, giving it five straight wins over one of the Southeastern Conference’s greenest members.
The difference this year is that Missouri has a new head coach in Eli Drinkwitz, who succeeded Barry Odom in the offseason after one season as the skipper at Appalachian State. Stoops was 4-0 against Odom.
As adamant as he was last week that this year’s team wasn’t responsible for the decades of torment in Knoxville, Stoops this week was equally so in suggesting that UK’s string of successes is inconsequential this weekend at Mizzou.
“There’s a perfect example,” Stoops said. “It means absolutely nothing, right? I mean truthfully, it means nothing. We have to go win this week. So, I don’t even know what the streak is. This is a new staff, a new group and I have no idea what it is because it really means nothing.”
OK, so that streak means “nothing,” but what about the Cats’ current win streak? Sure, it sits at only two games at the moment, but its chances of growing under Stoops are about 50-50: over his previous seven seasons, his teams have lost after back-to-back wins seven times but six times won at least one more game. Kentucky’s longest single-season streak under Stoops came in 2018 (that team started 5-0) and the second longest occurred last year (four straight wins to end the season).
Sometimes streaks are arbitrary; things may shake out your way depending on how the schedule falls. A win Saturday would give the Wildcats their second three-game win streak over SEC opponents under Stoops (the first was in 2016), and just its 13th such streak all time. UK’s head coach might tell you that means nothing, but I beg to differ.
Ground games
Missouri quarterback Connor Bazelak earned his share of headlines after having a field day against LSU’s secondary two weeks ago (29-of-34 passing for 406 yards and four touchdowns) and, of course, UK will look to bring him back to Earth. I have a feeling this game will be won on the turf, though, regardless of who comes out ahead.
Kentucky leads the SEC in rushing (206 yards per game) and is second in yards per carry (4.8, behind Texas A&M), but outside of the shootout versus Mississippi, it’s not quite looked like the rushing behemoth that it projected to be after an incredible display in the last half of 2019. Some of that’s a product of being able to throw the ball around some, which eats into potential run production, but Kentucky at year’s end was a full yard per play better (6.2) than it so far has been in 2020 (5.2). Averaging 5.2 isn’t bad, but in 2020, it’s good for ninth place in the SEC.
If UK can get just a little bit more from its run game, then those year-to-year numbers will even up. It’s already seen the stingiest team against the run it will all season (Mississippi State), so that should be achievable. Missouri ranks in the middle of the pack in rushing defense (allowing 130.7 yards, good for seventh) but, more notably, 13th in rushing touchdowns allowed (3.7 per game, ahead of only the sieve that is Ole Miss). The Tigers also give up 38 points per game (also 13th), so the Wildcats should be able to capitalize; they should beware of Mizzou star Nick Bolton, though, a reigning All-SEC First Team selection who’s among the league leaders with 36 total tackles (25 solo).
On the flip side, Missouri has made gains with its run game after being stifled by Alabama in its 2020 debut. The Tigers rushed for a season-high 180 yards against LSU, their most rushing yards in a game since going for 233 against Ole Miss on Oct. 12 of last year. With Kentucky’s starting defensive front racking up injuries (veteran nose guard Quinton Bohanna is out with a knee injury and defensive end Josh Paschal had a scare with his own knee two weeks ago), Mizzou could be in position to take advantage of inexperience.
“I’ve been really high on the front throughout the first several weeks of the season,” UK defensive coordinator Brad White said this week. “I thought last week was probably their worst game in terms of gap integrity, doing what they need to do. They got bumped outside of some gaps. I think the inside backers did a nice job of making up for it, but we can’t have that this week. There will be way too many holes, way too many vertical seams. We’ve got to do a good job of getting back to gap integrity.”
Final predictions
Kentucky 28, Missouri 17: This is where I warn readers that I’m 1-3 predicting games this season (Mississippi State), so consider this accordingly. Missouri may have the building blocks, but there’s more evidence to suggest that LSU isn’t all that good than there is to suggest that Mizzou right now is better than any other team in the SEC East not named Vanderbilt. The Tigers have home-field “advantage,” and holdovers from the Cats’ 2018 trip there will be extra-motivated to upset the visitors, but Kentucky has played exceptional defense the last two weeks and a win here sets up a juicy matchup in Lexington next week against Georgia. The Cats cover the spread (5.5) and win outright.
MVP: Terry Wilson. Last-second heroics won’t be necessary this time in Columbia, but Wilson will again break the hearts of Mizzou fans after throwing two touchdowns and posting his second 100-yard rushing game of the season.
The last word
True freshman running back JuTahn McClain on making the jump from high school to college:
“In high school, you can just wing it and basically do anything you wanted. You can get recruited off that and then you can be straight. But in college you’ve got study, you’ve got to be in the weight room. Your body is a temple, that’s what they’ve taught me. And you’ve gotta be in the film room. ... If you don’t know your opponent, then you’re as good as dead.”
