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Early Kentucky football preview: Vanderbilt

Another annual “take care of business” game.

By Samuel Hahn
Vanderbilt v Kentucky Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Greetings, BBN!

As we wait for the start of the 2022 Kentucky Wildcats football season, we’re continuing our march through the schedule to preview all the opponents.

This time, we look at Week 11 when Kentucky hosts Vanderbilt in their tenth game and second-to-last SEC game. Vanderbilt has only beaten UK one time since 2014 and never in Lexington since Mark Stoops has been coach—the Cats have won seven of the past eight and are looking to continue their domination this year as well.

Let’s dive into this matchup:

Vanderbilt Commodores

  • When: November 12th, 2022
  • Where: Kroger Field
  • Active Streak: Kentucky has won the past six in a row
  • Active Stadium Streak: Vanderbilt has not won in Lexington since Joker Phillips’s last season in 2012

Vanderbilt has been the worst team in the SEC for most of the past several years and will probably have it no different this time around. Last year, they began their season by losing 23-3 to FCS East Tennessee State at home, which is pretty much starting your year at rock bottom after an 0-9 2020 season.

While they did later manage to just squeak by Colorado State and UConn for two wins, they pretty much got pounded in every other game with the lone exception being a one-point loss at South Carolina.

Obviously when you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up and hope springs eternal at the beginning of a new, unblemished season, but I don’t think they are going to pose any kind of threat to UK this late in the year after bowl hopes have likely been squashed once again.

Coach Clark Lea will have this team improved, but the question is how much. 3-win team? 4 wins? There’s really not much in the way of expectations.

Prediction: Losing this game at home would be like losing to Chattanooga, especially the week before hosting Georgia. Even if UK suffers from the old “looking ahead” trap, surely Coach Stoops will make sure that they don’t completely soil their pants and ruin their whole year in the penultimate SEC game.

Cats win 34-14.

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