Kentucky vs. Auburn prediction: Is Saturday’s game a must-win for Wildcat bowl hopes?
It’s almost football time in the Bluegrass. Here are some final thoughts and predictions about how Kentucky football’s game against Auburn might play out at Kroger Field on Saturday.
Bowl streak might depend on solving home woes
Kentucky enters Saturday’s game having lost six straight SEC home games and 10 of its last 12 conference games at Kroger Field. With three wins in the final five games needed for bowl eligibility and trips to No. 7 Tennessee and No. 5 Texas still on the schedule, Auburn looks like a must-win if Mark Stoops and company are to extend the program’s eight-year bowl streak.
Auburn is 0-4 in SEC games this season, but only one of those losses (at Georgia) came by more than 10 points. Given Kentucky’s recent home form, a victory is far from assured.
“We’re in the right now and trying to win this game,” Stoops said. “That’s where we have to stay focused. Is (the bowl streak) important? I think it is in the grand scheme of things. There’s only eight schools in the country that have gone to eight straight (bowls), there’s only four in the SEC.
“It’s not easy. It’s just not.”
Stoops attempted to address the home struggles prior to the Vanderbilt game but was unsuccessful. He plans to make further tweaks to the pregame routine this week.
“It’s an important game,” Stoops said. “We’ve had incredible (home) atmospheres. I think you know the importance to myself and our team to play well everywhere, on the road and at home. I know the great sacrifices that people make, and it’s important to us. It’s very important to go play well.
“So, we will be out there, and I promise you our team will work extremely hard and be prepared and ready to go.”
Pressure on UK defense to fix Florida mistakes
The reality of Kentucky’s situation right now is the offense has just simply not been consistent enough to count on it scoring in the 30s against an SEC opponent, so the defense can ill afford slip-ups like the one in Gainesville.
One week after Florida freshman quarterback DJ Lagway completed five passes of at least 40 yards against UK, the Wildcats face an Auburn team that leads the country with 13 passes of at least 40 yards this season.
“If you look at Ole Miss, you look at Florida, and now you look at Auburn, stylistically all very similar,” defensive coordinator Brad White said. “Like, they really rely on big plays. They run the ball well, and then they rely on big plays.
“... Against Ole Miss and all those vertical shots, other than the two on fourth down, we were able to contain those same vertical shots. Against Florida, we didn’t. We didn’t make the play. Whatever the reason was on that particular play, we didn’t. So now it’s, OK, you saw what happens when you make them, you saw what happens when you didn’t. This Saturday it’s going to go one of two ways.”
Much of Auburn’s struggles can be attributed to turnover margin where the Tigers rank 127th of 134 teams nationally.
Only two teams have turned the ball over more than Auburn’s 16 turnovers this season.
“There’s a thin line between success and failure,” Stoops said. “They are the same way. This is a good football team. I don’t care what their record says. I know the players that they have on their roster, so we understand that for us it’s just getting back to work and doing things the best we can.”
Kentucky football injury report
Fans hoping for personnel changes on offense will get their wish out of necessity this week.
Normal starting right tackle Gerald Mincey has been declared out for the Auburn game after apparently reaggravating an injury he was dealing with last week during the loss at Florida. That means redshirt freshman Malachi Wood is in line for his first career start after impressing off the bench in Gainesville.
“I think that’s a guy we’ve wanted to see get going, and due to Mincey’s situation it gave us an opportunity to see him go out there,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “You never quite know how a freshman is going to react in that environment, but we thought he played extremely well and graded out as well as anybody else. And there was just a good size presence to him that we thought provided a spark for us at the offensive line position.”
Normal starting running back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye was listed as questionable on Wednesday’s availability report then downgraded to out on Thursday. Ohio State running back transfer Chip Trayanum, who made his debut at Florida after missing the first six games with a hand injury, was listed as doubtful due to an ankle injury he suffered in Gainesville on Wednesday then downgraded to out on Thursday.
With Sumo-Karngbaye and Trayanum unavailable, coaches will have little choice but to give an expanded role to redshirt freshman Jamarion Wilcox, who is averaging 7 yards per carry on the season but has yet to master the playbook. Freshman Jason Patterson, who opened the season as Sumo-Karngbaye’s top backup before being passed by Wilcox while dealing with an injury, is healthy and available as well. Freshman Tovani Mizell, who has yet to play this season, is the other scholarship running back on the roster.
Star cornerback Maxwell Hairston is set to miss his fourth straight game with an undisclosed health issue. Backup defensive back Jantzen Dunn was also listed as out on the first availability report of the week, as were inside linebacker Javant Brown and defensive linemen Josaih Hayes, Tavion Gadson and Darrion Henry-Young.
Defensive lineman Keeshawn Silver was listed as questionable in Thursday’s update. Four other starters on defense (linemen Deone Walker and Tre’vonn Rybka, cornerback DJ Waller and linebacker D’Eryk Jackson) were listed as probable, as were freshman kicker Jacob Kauwe and freshman defensive back Quay’sheed Scott.
AUBURN VS. KENTUCKY PREDICTIONS
Auburn 24, Kentucky 21
Seven games into the season it’s clear that predicting which version of Kentucky will show up week to week is a fool’s errand, but all the momentum is working against the Wildcats right now. Add in the troubling injury situation, and I just can’t pick this Kentucky team to win at home right now, regardless of Auburn’s SEC record.
MVP
Auburn wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith ranks 13th nationally in yards per catch (20.2) with six touchdown catches. After watching Florida torch UK for long gain after long gain, Lambert-Smith will surely have hopes of a big game against a secondary that desperately misses Hairston.
THE FINAL WORD
“I don’t know what’s going on outside of my bubble. There’s not anything that affects me. I’ve been through a lot, been through a lot worse than this. That’s for damn sure. Where I was raised and where I came from and what I’ve done, you think this is going to make me flinch? Come on. It’s back to work for me.” – Stoops on drowning out criticism