Welcome to the A Sea of Blue Open Game Thread for the Kentucky Wildcats at Florida Gators game. Particulars are as follows, courtesy of UKAthletics.com:
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| Kentucky at Florida | ||
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| Sat., Sept. 22 - 12:21 p.m. ET Gainesville, Fla. Gameday Information Ben Hill Griffin Stadium Game Notes: UK  | UF | ||
| Coverage | ||
| TV: SEC Network Radio: UK IMG  Live Video via ESPN3 Live Audio Text Updates |
The Gators are 3-0 heading into this game having dispatched the Bowling Green Falcons, the Texas A&M Aggies, and the Tennessee Volunteers, the latter two on the road. If you ask me, that's impressive football.
Kentucky is coming off one of the worst losses in it's long history versus the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, and comes into this game a huge underdog. Right where they belong.
For Kentucky to win, they need to:
- Play flawless offensive football. A slow start, turnovers, bad penalties or poor playcalling will be all it takes to doom them;
- Find a way to slow down Florida's running game. Frankly, I'm not sure this is possible for this team;
- Excel in special teams. UK can quite possibly do this.
- Get help from Florida. If Flordia doesn't shoot itself in the foot several times with bad penalties and/or turnovers it's hard to see UK having a chance. The good news is that Florida has done this before.
Florida needs to
- Dominate the line of scrimmage. With their personnel, that should be the high probability;
- Avoid turnovers and bad penalties;
- Throw the ball more often against Kentucky's weak secondary.
That's about all I have. This is a tough spot for Kentucky, and an upset here would be enormous, and impressive. It happens all the time in college football, and the Wildcats have been in the habit of pulling at least one of these per year. Let's see if Joker can complete the hat trick ending long losing streaks.