Kentucky Had Arguably The Best Result This Weekend Despite Not Playing A Game

And just like that Kentucky controls its own destiny to winning the SEC East. Really everything that happened this weekend broke nearly perfect for Kentucky. The only thing that didn’t was Florida making the comeback against Vanderbilt.

But, now Kentucky heads out of the bye week with games vs Vanderbilt, at Missouri, vs Georgia and at Tennessee. Obviously the game against Georgia is the one that everyone will circle and rightfully so as they are both at the top of the standings.

But, to go even a bit more into the schedule than that. Florida and Georgia still have to play each other, meaning one of them is guaranteed to have two losses. If you’re a Kentucky fan you want Georgia to win that game. You hold the tie breaker over Florida and the Gators have games left against Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina, none of which are on the road. Georgia still has Florida, Kentucky and Auburn (in Georgia).

So let’s talk about the Cats for a second, because, well, I want to. This team is legit, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Josh Allen has led the way as he’s looking more and more like a top-15 pick in the NFL Draft as he’s getting pass rush from the edge and has shown the ability to drop back in coverage as well. But, joining him is the emergence of Boogie Watson, with his 3 sacks. These two are supplying that pass rush on the edges while Kentucky’s defense in the middle is making tackles. It’s led by Kash Daniel, Darius West and Jordan Jones. Speaking of Jones, he’s been one of the biggest stories for Kentucky this year. At the end of last year he was on the shortleash with the coaching staff. He was a headcase and consistently drawing dumb penalties. This year he’s been a completely different player and that’s showing. It’s key going forward.

Offensively it’s still all about Benny Snell and the running game. Kentucky uses three guys – Snell, AJ Rose and quarterback Terry Wilson to set up the run game. No matter what happened at the Texas A&M game – refusing to give Snell the ball on 3rd and 2 in OT is still just an unbelievably bad decision – this is going to be the gameplan going forward. However, there needs to be improvement from Wilson at the QB spot in order to win the SEC East. We’ve seen him look good – most notably the Florida game. He was excellent there outside of one bad throw at the end of the first half. The game against A&M? The complete opposite. He was almost unplayable during that game. He has a big arm, but needs to be more consistent with short passes and try to get the ball moving early.

This team has a chance to be incredibly special. That said, it’s cliche and they can’t look forward to the Georgia game. But, the schedule as well as how Kentucky has played to open the season, has set up for something incredible. More importantly they won their bye week. Georgia losing, a handful of teams ranked ahead of them losing. It was a wonderful time to not play football.