Welcome to the eve of us exercising some demons. Some good news ahead for the Tennessee defense. We only have one game remaining against a good offense (Florida). All stats below adjusted for only SEC play.
Tennessee is the #2 SEC offense heading into this game. Kentucky's offense is #12. They have faced the #5 (USC), #8 (UGA), #9 (Texas) and #13 (Miss) defenses this year. We have faced #7 (Bama), #8 (UGA), #15 (MSST), and #16 (ARK). Safe to say I do not feel an adjustment needs to be made. Our offense is superior to theirs.
On the flip side, we have the #14 defense and Kentucky is #5. Our defense has already faced the following: #1 Arky, #5 Georgia, #7 Alabama, and #9 MSST. Kentucky has faced #4 Ole Miss, #5 Georgia, #13 SC, and #16 Texas. Kentucky's defense is wildly being propped up by the Texas game. Texas is a terrible offensive team. Based on that, I do not think much separates our two defenses. I think if they had played ARK and ALA and we had played TEX and USC; we might even have better stats. The only comparable game is GA. GA shut them down except for allowing 120 yards in 4th Q when they already were up by 28. UGA also shut it down offensively.
Good news is, we do not have to wait much longer to put the 10/18 behind us. I do not think Kentucky has a real edge in this game outside of home field and penalties. Oh wait, they are pretty good at stopping 4th downs. But outside of that, we have an advantage in everything.
Tennessee 41
Kentucky 20 (and 7 of this comes late)