Eye-Opening Kentucky Football Stats ahead of Georgia

The 2024 college football season is young. Using raw stats to compare teams and players isn’t a great measuring stick for a program, especially for Kentucky, who only played roughly 2.5 quarters against Southern Miss. However, efficiency numbers measure a team’s success on a per-play basis. There is still a lot of football to be played, but there are a few eye-opening stats that illustrate how poorly Kentucky has performed through two weeks.

Kentucky Third Down Defense

Third down defense was a glaring weakness of the 2023 Kentucky football team. The Wildcats ranked No. 107 in the FBS, allowing opponents to convert 43.2% of the time. The raw stats have improved — Kentucky is 6 of 18 through two games, No. 62 in FBS — but the advanced stats don’t paint such a pretty picture.

Average Third Down Distance: 10.39 yards, No. 2 in FBS
Third Down Success Rate: 42.1%, No. 89

Only one defense has put itself in a more favorable position on third down than Kentucky, yet they’re still not executing at a high clip. Why is that?

Opponent Completion Percentage: 71.4%, No. 121

Those numbers were against Tate Rodemaker and LaNorris Sellers. What’s that going to look like against Carson Beck or Jaxson Dart, the latter of which has only thrown seven incomplete passes in his first two games of the season?

Kentucky Pass Protection

The pass protection numbers are startling. Pro Football Focus has compiled stats for 268 teams (FCS included) that have played in FBS games this fall. Kentucky ranks No. 261 with a pass-blocking efficiency of 75%. Kentucky quarterbacks have been sacked five times, which ranks No. 100 in the FBS.

Join KSR Plus! With a KSR Plus membership, you get access to bonus content and KSBoard, KSR’s message board, to chat with fellow Cats fans and get exclusive scoop.

Success Rate

Success rate is a tool used to determine efficiency by answering the question, was that a good play? It is considered a success if the offense gets 50% of the necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second down, and 100% on third and fourth down. The statistics illustrate that Kentucky has a passing problem on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

Offense
Rushing: 50.8%, No. 26
Passing: 25%, No. 132
Overall: 40.8%, No. 82

Defense:
Rushing: 21.9%, No. 3
Passing: 42.5%, No. 97
Overall: 32.1%, No. 3

Prop Bets in the Georgia Game

Folks who bet Kentucky to cover a 9-point spread against South Carolina know that projections can be wildly inaccurate. Even if Vegas is way off in week three, some of this week’s offerings on DraftKings paint a dismal picture for Kentucky against Georgia.

Brock Vandagriff passing yards: 128
Kentucky Total Points: 9.5

For folks who prefer to bet on who will score touchdowns, 14 of the top 15 selections are Georgia Bulldogs. According to Vegas, only Kentucky’s Demie Sumo-Karngbaye has better odds of scoring a touchdown than the Georgia defense.