First Scouting Report: In pivotal game, can UK football deliver payback to Missouri?
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Game day: Kentucky 45, Louisiana Monroe 10
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-ULM football game at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky.
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An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next football game:
The opponent
Kentucky (1-0, 0-0 SEC) will face Missouri (0-0, 0-0 SEC) in the SEC opener for each on Saturday (Sept. 11) at Kroger Field. The game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. and be telecast by the SEC Network.
Coach Eli Drinkwitz’s Tigers were to open their 2021 season against Central Michigan at 4 p.m. Saturday in Columbia, Mo.
Series history
Kentucky leads 7-4 and had won five straight before Mizzou turned the tables last season.
Most recent meeting
Missouri quarterback Connor Bazelak completed 21 of 30 passes for 201 yards and running back Larry Rountree ran for 126 yards and two touchdowns as the Tigers threw off Kentucky’s domination with a 20-10 victory at Faurot Field on Oct. 24, 2020.
The Mizzou defense held UK to a paltry 145 yards of total offense.
Know your foe
1. Missouri quarterback Connor Bazelak is a player Kentucky recruited vigorously. Besides UK, the 6-foot-3, 212-pound redshirt sophomore from Dayton, Ohio, also turned down scholarship offers from Georgia, North Carolina State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Vanderbilt, West Virginia, Boston College, Duke, Iowa, North Carolina and Indiana.
2. Even during Kentucky’s five-game win streak vs. Mizzou, the teams were usually evenly matched. In three of those five UK victories, the Wildcats’ margin of victory was one score.
3. It is hard to overstate how big a game this is for Kentucky. To aspire to a 2018-style breakthrough season, the 2021 Cats almost have to tame the Tigers.
In the big picture, Mark Stoops and troops need to reassert their superiority in the SEC East pecking order over Missouri and, in doing so, stall the impressive momentum Drinkwitz has built early in his Tigers coaching tenure.
This story was originally published September 4, 2021 at 3:19 PM.
