First Scouting Report: UK seeks to continue the hard times for struggling Vanderbilt
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Game day: Tennessee 45, No. 18 Kentucky 42
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s Kentucky-Tennessee 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. 18 Kentucky (6-3, 4-3 SEC) will face Vanderbilt (2-7, 0-5) on Saturday, Nov. 13, at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville.
The game will kick off at 7 p.m. (EST) and be telecast by ESPN2.
Coach Clark Lea’s Commodores had an open date Saturday (Nov. 6).
Series history
Kentucky leads 47-42-4, and the Wildcats have won six of the past seven meetings with Vandy.
In the 2000s, UK leads the series 14-7.
Most recent meeting
Kentucky’s Christopher Rodriguez ran for 149 yards and two touchdowns on only 13 carries as UK held off Vanderbilt 38-35 on Nov. 14, 2020, at Kroger Field.
The win came only two days after beloved Wildcats offensive line coach John Schlarman died from cancer.
Know your foe
1. First-year Vanderbilt head man Clark Lea came to Nashville from Notre Dame, where he was Brian Kelly’s defensive coordinator. Prior to Notre Dame, Lea worked as an assistant at Wake Forest, Syracuse, Bowling Green and UCLA.
A Nashville native, Lea played college baseball at Birmingham-Southern and then Belmont before transferring to Vanderbilt. Walking on to the Commodores football team, Lea eventually earned a scholarship as a fullback.
Lea, 38, earned both his undergraduate (2004) and graduate (2007) degrees in political science at Vandy.
2. Southeastern Conference games have been a slog for Vanderbilt in 2021.
The Commodores have been outscored a robust 207-54 in their five league games.
Drubbed by Georgia (62-0), Florida (42-0) and Mississippi State (45-6), Vandy has played competitively in defeats vs. SEC East rivals South Carolina (21-20) and Missouri (37-28).
3. Vanderbilt will enter the Kentucky game having lost 18 straight SEC contests. The Commodores last won a league game on Oct. 19, 2019, a 21-14 victory over Missouri.
UK will seek to avert what happened in 2003 when a 1-9 Vandy snapped a 23-game Southeastern Conference losing skid by upsetting Kentucky 28-17.
That day, Vanderbilt students responded to the streak-busting victory by rushing the field and tearing down the goal posts.
This story was originally published November 6, 2021 at 10:50 PM.
