First Scouting Report: Can Kentucky take the shine off of Louisville’s dream season?
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Game day: South Carolina 17, Kentucky 14
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-South Carolina football game at Columbia, S.C.
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An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next football game:
The opponent
Kentucky (6-5, 3-5 SEC) will play at No. 9 Louisville (10-1, 7-1 ACC) on Saturday at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium (seating capacity of 60,800) in Louisville.
The game will kick off at noon and be televised by ABC.
With a 38-31 win at Miami on Saturday, Coach Jeff Brohm’s Cardinals clinched a berth in the ACC championship game opposite No. 4 Florida State (11-0, 8-0 ACC).
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time football series with Louisville 19-15. The Wildcats have won the past four meetings between the teams and five of the last six.
UK coach Mark Stoops is 5-4 vs. Louisville.
U of L’s Jeff Brohm has never coached as a head man against Kentucky.
Most recent meeting
Will Levis threw two touchdown passes, Christopher Rodriguez ran for 120 yards and Matt Ruffolo went 4-for-4 on field-goal attempts to spark Kentucky to a 26-13 victory over Louisville on Nov. 26, 2022, at Kroger Field.
After an inconsistent season, Ruffolo connected on field goals of 43, 29, 35 and 40 yards.
UK’s defense set up 10 Wildcats points by forcing turnovers. Kentucky was plus-three for the game in turnover margin after intercepting two passes and recovering a fumble.
The game turned out to be the final one for Scott Satterfield as Cardinals coach. After going 25-24 in four seasons (2019 through 2022) leading the U of L program, Satterfield left to become head coach at Cincinnati.
Know your foe
1. In his prior head coaching stints at Western Kentucky (2014-2016) and Purdue (2017-2022), Jeff Brohm has fared well against his team’s primary rival.
At WKU, Brohm went 2-1 against Middle Tennessee State, with his only loss, 50-47, coming in triple overtime in his first game against MTSU in 2014.
While at Purdue, Brohm led the Boilermakers to four victories in five tries in the “Old Oaken Bucket” rivalry with Indiana. Brohm’s sole loss to IU, 44-41 in 2019, came in double overtime.
2. Winning the close ones has been the key to U of L’s 10-win campaign. In games decided by one score — meaning, by eight points or less — U of L is 5-0.
3. For all the attention Brohm gets for his prowess coaching offense, it is the U of L defense that has put up the more impressive numbers.
Louisville is holding opponents to averages of 18.36 points and 317 yards a game. U of L has 18 takeaways this season, 11 interceptions and seven fumble recoveries.
Offensively, Louisville quarterback Jack Plummer has been good, not great. The 6-foot-5, 215-pound super-senior, who transferred to U of L from California and, prior to that, played at Purdue for Brohm, is completing 64.45% of his throws.
Plummer has thrown for 2,710 yards and 19 touchdowns but has also been intercepted 10 times.
Running back Jawhar Jordan is averaging 6.7 yards a carry and has run for 1,009 yards and 11 TDs. Last season vs. UK, Jordan, a transfer from Syracuse, carried 22 times for 145 yards.
This story was originally published November 18, 2023 at 10:51 PM.
