First Scouting Report: Can Kentucky extend its hold over Vanderbilt?
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Game day: Kentucky 21, Missouri 17
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Missouri football game at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
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An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next football game:
The opponent
Kentucky (6-3, 3-3 SEC) will begin a season-ending, three-game home stand by playing host to SEC East rival Vanderbilt (3-6, 0-5 SEC) at Kroger Field (capacity 61,000).
The game will kick off at noon (EST) and be telecast by the SEC Network.
Coach Clark Lea’s Commodores lost to South Carolina 38-27 Saturday night in Nashville.
Series history
Kentucky leads 48-42-4. The Wildcats have won seven of the past eight meetings with Vandy.
UK Coach Mark Stoops is 7-2 against Vanderbilt.
Commodores head man Clark Lea is 0-1 vs. UK.
Most recent meeting
Christopher Rodriguez ran for 114 yards and a touchdown and Will Levis threw for 177 yards and two scores to lead Kentucky to a 34-17 victory over Vanderbilt on Nov. 13, 2021, in Nashville.
Know your foe
1. Job one for Vanderbilt in Lexington is trying to slow Kentucky star running back Christopher Rodriguez. In three prior games against the Commodores, “C-Rod” has decimated the Vandy defense. In UK’s 38-14 win over Vanderbilt in Nashville in 2019, Rodriguez carried 15 times for 129 yards and two touchdowns.
In UK’s 38-35 win over Vandy in Lexington in 2020, Rodriguez carried 13 times for 149 yards and two TDs. Last season in Music City, “C-Rod” carried 16 times for 114 yards and a score.
For his career, Rodriguez has carried 44 times for 392 yards— a robust average of 8.9 yards a carry — and five touchdowns against Vanderbilt.
2. If health allows, Kentucky will go against the fourth Vanderbilt quarterback it has faced in the past four meetings. In 2019, Ball State transfer Riley Neal quarterbacked the Commodores. In 2020, true freshman Ken Seals was at the controls for Vandy and played well, completing 21 of 32 passes for 225 yards and two touchdowns in VU’s 38-35 loss at Kroger Field.
Last year, both Seals and Mike Wright played against UK, with the latter throwing for two touchdown passes in Kentucky’s 34-17 win.
This year, Vanderbilt has again turned to a true freshman, AJ Swann. A 6-foot-3, 225-pound product of White, Ga., Swann was completing 57.7 percent of his throws entering Saturday night’s game vs. South Carolina. Swann had thrown for 1,068 yards with eight touchdown throws vs. only one interception.
In his first college start, Swann threw for 255 yards and four TDs in a 38-28, come-from-behind, road win at Northern Illinois. Swann threw for 281 yards and two touchdowns in a 52-28 loss to Mississippi.
Swann suffered an undisclosed injury two weeks ago in Vandy’s 17-14 loss at Missouri. However, published reports said he was expected to start Saturday night against South Carolina — and he did.
However, Vandy used both Swann and Wright against the Gamecocks. Swann completed 10-of-19 passes for 127 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Wright went 8-of-15 passing for 115 yards with a TD and a pick. A dual-threat, Wright also ran six times for 43 yards.
3. With the loss to South Carolina, Vanderbilt has now lost 26 Southeastern Conference games in a row. In 2003, Vandy ended a 23-game, SEC losing skid vs. UK.
At kickoff of that game in Nashville, there could not have been 200 people sitting in the Vanderbilt Stadium student section. Yet as the Commodores built a big lead in what became a 28-17 Vanderbilt victory, VU students started pouring into the stadium.
At the final horn, they rushed the field and tore the goal posts down — the only time in my memory that a victory over UK led to such a raucous celebration.
This story was originally published November 5, 2022 at 3:31 PM.
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