2023 Kentucky Football Foes: Georgia Bulldogs

Greetings, BBN!

Today we continue our offseason early previews of the Kentucky Wildcats 2023 opponents, and Week 6’s opponent needs no introduction: The Georgia Bulldogs.

The Cats will be facing the two-time defending champs between the hedges in Athens and be only one week removed from a home game with the Florida Gators.

Let’s dive into this matchup.

Kentucky at Georgia

• Time/Date: TBD time on October 7th
• Location: Sanford Stadium
• TV Channel: TBD
• Early Odds: ESPN FPI gives the Cats a 9.7% chance of winning.

After the two seasons Georgia’s just wrapped up, it’s hard to imagine them as anything but a top-five team come this game in October, and UK is 0-10 all-time against the Dawgs under Stoops — the only team in the East they have yet to beat.

With hope UK will enter this game undefeated (got to survive Florida at home first), and a win to improve to 6-0 could take the program to new heights, with winning the SEC East a possibility.

One thing that makes this year’s game interesting is that unlike most years, where the Georgia game for the East came towards the end of the schedule and was truly winner-take-all, this will be just the Cats’ third SEC game this year and will let them know one week into October whether they have SEC championship chances or not.

Kentucky’s fought Georgia very hard these last several seasons but have never seriously threatened to pull off the upset—primarily due to lack of scoring.

In 2019 the teams were tied at halftime 0-0, but the Cats just could not find the end zone at all and got shut out 21-0.

2020 was similar in a 13-3 loss, and last year was 16-6. The defense has had a lot of success against the Dawgs, but unless they manage some touchdowns, they’ll never really be in it.

Another thing going in Kentucky’s favor is the Dawgs are breaking in a new quarterback in Carson Beck, a junior with just 53 career passes to his name. There’s a very real chance Kentucky has the superior quarterback in this matchup, as Devin Leary figures to be among the best in the conference at his position.

Will the combination of Leary and a passing game that features Barion Brown — who thrived vs. the Dawgs last year — be enough to finally score against this vaunted defense?

Prediction: UK has to win this game at some point, but Georgia also has to regress. That hasn’t happened yet, and it doesn’t seem like it will for a while. The Cats drop another hard-fought contest, though never count them out.

Georgia 28, Kentucky 13