Week 12: Kentucky at Georgia

Georgia’s late-season resurgence continued last Saturday with an impressive 45–20 win over Auburn in Athens. After scoring a total of 34 points against Tennessee (in a loss) and Vanderbilt (in a 3-point win), the Bulldogs have exploded for an average of 43.7 over their last three games, wins over Florida, Troy and Auburn. Georgia has topped the 40-point mark in three straight games for the first time since the 1942 season.

“They appear to me to be playing as good as anybody in the conference at this point,” said Kentucky coach Rich Brooks. “Since (the Tennessee game), they have become a more physical football team and are running the ball extremely well.”

That Georgia running game has produced an average of 195.8 yards over the last four games. Redshirt freshman Knowshon Moreno has been doing the majority of the heavy lifting — four straight 100-yard games — but senior Thomas Brown returned from an injury last week and rushed for 81 yards on 14 carries vs. Auburn.

Kentucky snapped a two-game losing streak with a 27–20 win at Vanderbilt, but the Cats’ once-mighty offense has been rather ordinary of late. Kentucky has averaged only 335 yards and 20.5 points in its last two games and has failed to top the 400-yard mark in four of the past five games. Vanderbilt, the SEC’s 11th-ranked offense, outgained UK 432 to 351 Saturday afternoon.

“We need to play better,” Brooks said. “In some ways our play has regressed in the last three weeks. … Offensively we need to block a little bit better. We just need to do a lot of things better.”

The UK passing attack has been consistently solid — the Cats have thrown for 200 yards or more in every game — but the running game has been inconsistent. Led by Rafael Little and Derrick Locke, the Cats picked up 129 yards against Vanderbilt but failed to hit the 100-yard mark in their two previous games, vs. Florida and Mississippi State.

The Cats will need offensive balance to score points on a Georgia defense that has held its last three SEC opponents to less than 350 yards. The Dawgs have struggled at times against the pass — a good sign for UK — but for the most part this defense has been solid.

Georgia still holds a half-game lead on Tennessee in the SEC East, but the Dawgs need help — one UT loss — to reach the SEC title game. Kentucky can tie for the East title but has been eliminated from playing in the championship game.

The Wildcats, who beat Georgia 24-20 in Lexington last fall, have never defeated the Dawgs in consecutive seasons. They have won two in a row vs. UGa, but those games (1949, ’56) were not in consecutive seasons. One more nugget of information: Kentucky has not won in Athens since 1977.

Georgia by 10