Florida at Kentucky predictions: Will ‘same ol’ Kentucky’ show up on Saturday?
It’s almost football time in the Bluegrass! Here are some final thoughts and predictions about how the University of Kentucky’s game against Florida might play out at Kroger Field on Saturday night.
Bombs and bumbles
Florida’s 257.5 passing yards allowed per game in Southeastern Conference play is a bit higher than its overall passing yards allowed per game (241); the latter figure is the second-highest average given up in the league, behind only Mississippi State. The Gators are susceptible through the air.
Previously, that fact wouldn’t have mattered to Kentucky, but now it has Will Levis under center and Wan’Dale Robinson, the leading receiver in the SEC. UK’s downfield game was held in check last week by a South Carolina team that geared its defense toward making Levis throw closer to the line of scrimmage; per Pro Football Focus, his average depth of target was 3.5 yards against the Gamecocks after that number being closer to 11 or 12 yards in UK’s first three games.
Kentucky under Coach Mark Stoops has seen a Todd Grantham-coached defense eight times and has two wins to show for it, in 2016 at Louisville and in 2018 at Florida. Stephen Johnson lit up the Cardinals for 338 yards and three touchdowns in the win over U of L, but Kentucky did most of its damage on the ground against Florida in 2018; Benny Snell and Terry Wilson combined for 280 of UK’s 303 rushing yards in a 27-16 win.
Kentucky will need Levis’ arm to be a difference-maker whenever opportunities are presented, and they will be, especially if the Cats are able to establish their run game early. They’re fifth in the league in rushing (204.5 yards per game) and Chris Rodriguez leads the conference in that category. Levis has gotten more involved as a rusher, and Liam Coen has shown a willingness to get creative with non-running backs in that part of the attack.
Other than connecting on big plays (and limiting them), ball security will once more be a major concern for the Wildcats. Kentucky can’t cough the ball up at the rate it has this season — its 2.8 giveaways per game are almost a full turnover worse than the SEC’s next-worst teams in that stat, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt — and win on Saturday, regardless of how many long throws it hits or gashing runs it makes. Controlling the pace of the game is crucial, and giving Florida more chances to dictate the terms of engagement is a recipe for disaster.
Kentucky’s offensive numbers have dipped the last couple of weeks, and Coen mostly attributes that to the plays they’ve given up.
“If you add all (the turnovers at South Carolina) up, that’s 12 plays — if you only get three (more) on each of those drives — that’s 12 more plays that we left out there, at the least,” Coen said. “That’s hard, to lose out on those possessions, and you kind of get out of rhythm a little bit when you keep turning the ball over. But I thought from an execution standpoint, of playing physical and executing the game plan, we did a nice job.”
Something else on which to keep tabs: sacks. Florida is tied for fifth nationally with 16 sacks (four per game), about twice the rate that Kentucky has gotten to the quarterback (nine times in four games). The Gators’ average has dipped to three per game in SEC play, but this will be a big test for UK’s offensive line and other blockers. Darian Kinnard has been exceptional — PFF has him as the only offensive tackle in the country with a grade of at least 85 in both pass blocking and run blocking this season — so look for most of Florida’s pressure to come from the left side. PFF was high on Dare Rosenthal but Stoops seemed much less pleased with the LSU transfer’s effort at South Carolina; he’ll get a chance to redeem himself this week against one of the best edge rushers in the country (Zach Carter).
Emotional edge
Kentucky has earned more respect nationally than its fans often want to admit. SEC analyst Chris Doering wondered aloud a couple weeks ago if Kentucky was the third-best team in the conference. The coaches have the Cats ranked No. 23 in the country. On an episode this week of “College Football Enquirer,” a podcast by Yahoo! Sports, columnist Dan Wetzel recognized Chris Rodriguez and Robinson as two of the best players in college football.
“Talking about solid programs, that’s a solid program that’s just banging out wins,” Wetzel said of the Wildcats.
Let’s not let reality get in the way of a good narrative, though. Kentucky continues to embrace its position as an underdog in a league full of big dogs. It did not take long for it to find possible bulletin-board material, either; a clip from Dan Mullen’s Monday news conference in which he indicated that he did not know Robinson’s name, only his number, was widely circulated soon after it was uttered (of course, void of later context in which Mullen proceeded to laud Robinson’s explosiveness and play-making potential).
Sophomore tight end Brenden Bates offered some locker-room perspective ahead of the matchup.
“Florida thinks Kentucky’s the same ol’ Kentucky even when we have close games with ‘em or beat ‘em,” Bates said. “We’re obviously a very dominant team but they still see past that because it’s Florida. Just watching us practice and then seeing our games, we haven’t played to our full potential yet, obviously. If we put everything together, I really see us being dominant in this game.”
Confidence is good, especially going into a game that most players acknowledge is the biggest of the season, to date, but it’ll also be important for the Cats to not get too hyped; Florida could be able to exploit that just as easily as UK will be able to channel it for good. Having a senior-laden defense should help, in that regard.
“I’m kind of an even-keeled dude,” linebacker DeAndre Square said. (Coach Jon Sumrall) sometimes worried that I don’t have enough juice but then I go out on the field and I’m running around everywhere. I just try to keep it all in. But the other guys, I try to lead them by example by just being loud and keep reminding them not to get too over-hyped and to be locked in on the details, focused on the assignments and just going hard. I feel like we’ve been doing a good job with that.”
Final predictions
Florida 27, Kentucky 23: I don’t think the Gators should be as big a favorite as does Vegas, which opened the spread for this one at 8.5 points, but long-term and recent history suggest picking Kentucky to win this one is a fool’s errand. You can make a legitimate argument that Kentucky has been as good as Florida in this series, on average, over the last seven or eight meetings, but the fact remains that UK has only one win to show for its efforts. Moral victories are still losses, and this team — while talented enough to win outright — seems ripe for its first “L” after flirting with disaster for most of the season. If it had gone a week without putting the ball on the ground, I might feel differently, but it’s hard to pick Kentucky here when it’s demonstrated so much carelessness the last three weeks.
MVP: Wan’Dale Robinson. If the Wildcats come out on top, it’s because Robinson puts up a triple-digit receiving night and gets loose for a couple of big touchdowns against a Florida secondary that’s been suspect at times.
Good gamble: You can get +120 odds on Kentucky to score first in the game. This could boil down to the coin flip, but UK has been strong on its opening drives in part thanks to pregame scripting. If the Wildcats have the ball first, there’s a solid chance this ticket comes back a winner.
The last word
Six players returned to practice recently after a legal matter was resolved. Three of them — Andru Phillips, Vito Tisdale and Joel Williams — could bring immediate relief to the secondary. Defensive coordinator Brad White was asked whether their mental or physical conditioning was more affected by their lengthy layoff:
“I think it’s both. So much about football is getting reps, but at the same time, the physical aspect, there’s nothing like doing actual football plays. So there’s aspects of both. Being mentally ready, knowing the playbook, seeing things with your eyes. You can’t replace reps in football.”
