First Scouting Report: In battle for SEC East lead, can Kentucky shock Georgia?
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Game day: Kentucky 42, LSU 21
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s Kentucky-LSU 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
No. 16 Kentucky (6-0, 4-0 SEC) will face No. 2 Georgia (6-0, 4-0 SEC) Saturday, Oct. 16, at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga.
The game will kick off at 3:30 p.m. (EDT) and be telecast by CBS.
Coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs defeated Auburn 34-10 Saturday.
Series history
Georgia leads 60-12-2 and has won 11 straight meetings.
Kentucky’s last victory in the series came in 2009, at Sanford Stadium, a 34-27 upset sparked by Randall Cobb, Derrick Locke and Corey Peters.
Most recent meeting
Zamir White ran for 136 yards and a touchdown as Georgia prevailed in a defensive struggle with a 14-3 victory over Kentucky on Oct. 31, 2020, at Kroger Field.
Know your foe
1. This will be the second time in the past four seasons that Kentucky and Georgia have met to battle for the SEC East lead.
The previous time, Nov. 3, 2018, was for the actual SEC East championship with the winner assured a berth in the SEC Championship Game.
That day, Bulldogs running backs D’Andre Swift (156 rushing yards, two touchdowns on 16 carries) and Elijah Holyfield (115 yards, one TD, on 18 carries) gashed the UK defense and the No. 6 Dawgs prevailed over the No. 11 Wildcats 34-17.
2. Through six games — Clemson, UAB, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Auburn — only two teams have scored an offensive touchdown vs. Kirby Smart’s “D.”
Down 40-6, South Carolina scored on a 36-yard touchdown pass from Luke Doty to Josh Vann with 10:55 left in the game.
Down 24-3, Auburn scored on a 6-yard TD run by Tank Bigsby with 4:11 left in the third quarter.
Going into the Auburn game, Georgia was first in the FBS in total defense (allowing 177.8 yards a game), passing defense (110 yards a game) and scoring defense (4.6 points a game).
If you were looking for a “weakness,” Georgia was only No. 4 in the country in rushing defense (surrendering 67.8 yards a game).
That Georgia has taken it to a whole other level defensively would seem to be problematic for Kentucky — since the Wildcats have failed to score a touchdown against the Bulldogs in the past two meetings between the teams.
In 2019, in a game played in a driving rainstorm in Athens, Kentucky was held to 177 yards of total offense and shut out by Georgia 21-0.
Last year, with Joey Gatewood starting at quarterback for Kentucky in place of an injured Terry Wilson, UK accumulated only 229 yards of offense and lost 14-3.
Of course, the Big Blue Nation has to feel more optimistic about UK’s chances to cause the mighty Georgia defense some stress coming off Saturday night’s strong showing vs. LSU.
3. Georgia’s vulnerability, relatively speaking, may be the quarterback position.
USC transfer J.T. Daniels, who had seemed to solidify the Bulldogs QB situation after returning from an ACL injury late last season, has been sidelined this year by a lat injury.
Daniels did not play Saturday at Auburn.
In his absence, Stetson Bennett IV made his third start of the 2021 season and completed 14 of 21 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns.
Bennett began his career at Georgia as a walk-on. He transferred to a junior college, only to be asked to return to Athens with the promise of a scholarship.
A 5-foot-11, 190-pound senior from Blackshear, Ga., Bennett started for Georgia against Kentucky in 2020. The Wildcats intercepted him twice, and Bennett finished the game 9-of-13 passing for 131 yards.
Of course, to make Georgia’s QB play an issue, a team has to be able to force the Bulldogs to throw in predictable passing downs.
Georgia went into the Auburn game ranked No. 32 in the FBS in rushing, averaging 196.4 yards a game.
This story was originally published October 9, 2021 at 11:14 PM.
