Sunday Look-Ahead: The Final Four Opponents

by:Andrew Cassady10/21/12

ACassady_KSR

  With last night's loss to Georgia, Kentucky was eliminated from bowl eligibility and will not be participating in the post season for the second year in a row. The game saw the Cats give a great effort but when time expired so did any hope of somehow salvaging the season. To date UK has played the toughest schedule in all of college football but luckily things are about to get much easier for our football team. For the final stretch of the season, 3 of UK's opponents currently have a losing record and 1 of them is from the FCS. Here's a quick look at the final four teams we will play. @ Missouri Current Record: 3-4 (0-4 SEC) Missouri is still searching for their first SEC win and to date the Tigers have not been impressive. Their conference games have not been very competitive and they eked out a couple of their non-conference wins over some pretty bad teams. Saturday's game will be a battle to determine the worst team in the East. With Florida, Tennessee, and Texas A&M still on the schedule this could be the only real chance Missouri has of picking up a conference win. For the Cats Missouri offers the same chance. Pick up a conference road win and avoid being labeled the worst team in the east. After last night's performance, even on the road, I like UK's chances. Vanderbilt Current Record: 3-4 (2-3 SEC) While Vandy's SEC record doesn't look too bad right now keep in mind those two wins are over Missouri and Auburn. Two of the worst teams in the league. Kentucky will be looking for revenge after being embarrassed 38-8 in Nashville. Also in the Cats favor is the game being played at home. Throwing out Kent. St, the Cats have averaged 22 points per game at home. Compare that to just 7 points per game on the road. Unquestionably the Cats have played much better this year at home. If Patrick Towles is back in the mix at this point the chance of victory is even higher. Samford Current Record: 5-3 The Cats have a bye week before their final home game of the year. Hopefully by this game fans will have an idea of where the program is heading and can look at senior day accordingly. Samford is our FCS opponent for the year and shouldn't be able to hang with Kentucky. However, the game is the Bulldogs final game of the year and I'm sure that Samford has to look at this as their bowl game. Regardless it will be nice to see the Cats favored at home for the first time in a couple of months. @ Tennessee Current Record: 3-4 (0-4 SEC) The Vols have lost 4 of their last five and have to travel to Columbia to face a South Carolina team looking to make a statement. This years game could mirror last year's upset of UT in many ways. The Cats win up until this point and they are 4-7, just like last year. The Vols drop 2 of their next 4 and they are 5-6 with a win over UK needed to make a bowl game. Maybe once again the Cats can play spoiler on our rival's season. Although I wouldn't bet too much on that happening.   While the season has been a disappointment it isn't outside the realm of possibility to see the Cats string together some wins and finish 5-7 or 4-8. Which would be about the same as last season albeit with a much harder schedule. Time will tell how the season winds up. One thing is for sure the next four games shouldn't be as miserable as these last four. @ACassady_KSR

Discuss This Article

Comments have moved.

Join the conversation and talk about this article and all things Kentucky Sports in the new KSR Message Board.

KSBoard

2024-04-18