Know Your Foe: Kentucky will try again to slow Tennessee’s fast-paced offense
READ MORE
Preview: Kentucky at No. 7 Tennessee
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday’s Kentucky-Tennessee football game at Knoxville.
Expand All
Scouting Kentucky football’s next opponent, the Tennessee Volunteers:
Game details
Kentucky (3-5, 1-5 SEC) will play at No. 7 Tennessee (6-1, 3-1 SEC) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at Neyland Stadium (capacity 101,915) on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
The game will kick off at 7:45 p.m. (EDT) and will be telecast by the SEC Network.
Coach Josh Heupel’s Volunteers were off Saturday. In their most recent action, the Vols beat then-No. 7 Alabama 24-17 in Knoxville on Oct. 19.
History and trends
Tennessee leads the all-time series with Kentucky 84-26-9. The Volunteers have beaten the Wildcats in 36 of the past 39 meetings.
Kentucky coach Mark Stoops is 2-9 vs. Tennessee.
UT head man Josh Heupel is 3-0 vs. UK.
Tennessee has won 18 of the past 19 meetings played at Neyland Stadium.
The Wildcats are 4-36-1 all-time against the Volunteers when UT is ranked in the AP Top 25.
Since 1984, Kentucky and Tennessee have played 13 games that were decided by one score (eight points or less). The Volunteers have won 11 of those 13 contests.
Most recent meeting
On Oct. 28, 2023, Joe Milton passed for a touchdown, Jaylen Wright and Dylan Sampson each ran for scores and Charles Campbell kicked four field goals to lead No. 21 Tennessee to a 33-27 win over Kentucky at Kroger Field.
UK lost even though Wildcats quarterback Devin Leary threw for a season-high 372 yards and two touchdowns. Dane Key caught seven passes for 113 yards and a score; Barion Brown had five receptions for 58 yards and a TD; and Jordan Dingle caught four passes for 61 yards for the Wildcats.
It was the third straight game between Tennessee and Kentucky at Kroger Field in which the Volunteers prevailed by six points or less.
Pride of the program
In the four seasons (1994 through 1997) that Peyton Manning was Tennessee’s primary quarterback, the Volunteers went 40-9, won three of four bowl games and claimed the 1997 SEC championship.
The middle son of former Mississippi Rebels star QB Archie Manning and his wife Olivia, Peyton Manning completed 62.3 percent of his throws at UT and passed for 11,201 career yards with 89 touchdown throws vs. 33 interceptions.
The 6-foot-5, 230-pound Manning, of course, went on to become one of the all-time great NFL quarterbacks with the Indianapolis Colts (1998 through 2010) and Denver Broncos (2012 through 2015).
Over the course of his NFL career, Manning earned NFL MVP honors five times and was voted into the Pro Bowl 14 times. Manning led four of his teams to the Super Bowl, winning championships with the Colts after the 2006 regular season and the Broncos after the 2015 regular season.
In 2021, Manning was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Three things to know
1. Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava has been the subject of massive scrutiny ever since published reports during his recruitment suggested that a UT collective signed him to a deal that will pay him some $8 million by the end of his junior season with the Volunteers.
This year, in his first full season as a college starter, the 6-foot-6, 215-pound product of Long Beach, California, has proven himself mostly worthy of his pay. Iamaleava has directed the Volunteers to wins over three ranked teams — No. 24 North Carolina State, No. 15 Oklahoma and No. 7 Alabama.
Iamaleava is completing 63.5 percent of his throws and has passed for 1,413 yards with eight touchdowns vs. four interceptions.
2. For all the focus on Tennessee’s up-tempo offensive pace and the wide splits UT wide receivers enact in Josh Heupel’s attack, running the football and playing stout defense is what has propelled the Volunteers into College Football Playoff contention.
Coming into this weekend’s games, Tennessee was seventh in the country in rushing, averaging 241.6 yards a game on the ground. Junior running back Dylan Sampson stood 10th in the FBS in rushing (838 yards) and third in rushing touchdowns (17).
Meanwhile, UT was fourth in the nation in total defense (allowing 259 yards a game), fourth in scoring defense (surrendering 11.57 points a game), second in rushing defense (allowing 79 yards a contest), and 23rd in pass defense (allowing 180 yards a game).
3. There are multiple players with ties to Kentucky on the Tennessee roster.
Former Great Crossing High School star Kalib Perry has been a contributing player for UT at linebacker. The 6-3, 231-pound junior has made 12 tackles, a tackle for loss and has both a quarterback hurry and a forced fumble.
Khalifa Keith, a 6-1, 239-pound sophomore running back from Birmingham, was originally committed to Kentucky in recruiting but reneged to cast his lot with the Rocky Toppers. This season, Keith has carried 17 times for 62 yards and has scored a touchdown.
Defensive back Andre Stewart, who signed with Kentucky in the Wildcats’ 2022 recruiting class and spent that season on the UK roster as a redshirt, is now at Tennessee.
Stewart left UK after one year and played in 2023 for Towson University, where he made two tackles in five game appearances.
A 6-foot, 185-pound redshirt sophomore, Stewart does not appear in Tennessee’s defensive statistics.
This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 7:00 AM.
