Good, Bad and Ugly: 3 Scenarios for Kentucky at No. 1 Georgia

Kentucky will try to do something Saturday night that no team has done in the CFB Playoff era, knock off the No. 1 team in the country on their home field. Georgia has 32-game regular season winning streak, but these Bulldogs don’t look as dominant as the teams that won back-to-back National Championships.

Even though the Dawgs’ have sat atop the college football world for the last two seasons, the Cats have played it close in this series, covering the spread in every matchup since 2018. Can they finally close the gap? Let’s map out scenarios for Saturday’s Top 20 matchup.

Best Case: Fast Start for Kentucky

Georgia trailed at half to South Carolina and fell behind 17-10 in the third quarter at Auburn. On the other hand, Kentucky has started each SEC game with a four-score advantage by the second quarter.

In this best case scenario, the Kentucky defense forces a three-and-out to set up a short field. Liam Coen‘s script produces a touchdown on the opening drive. The Wildcats’ defense continues to create havoc and provides another short-field for the Kentucky offense. More explosive play by the offense gives Kentucky an early two-score lead.

Unlike South Carolina and Auburn, the Kentucky defense can play with a lead. As the clock ticks in the second half, pressure mounts as Georgia plays from behind before Carson Beck delivers a back-breaking turnover. Without catastrophic, timely mistakes by the Kentucky offense, the Cats have enough in their arsenal to run the football efficiently and shock the world with an upset of the Dawgs.

Worst Case: Georgia Wakes up as Disaster Strikes

Just as Kentucky fans are waiting for their offense to click, Georgia fans are ready for this team to put it together with a breakthrough performance. Star receiver Ladd McConkey is in his second game back from injury. After kicking the dust off, he gives Carson Beck a reliable second option to Brock Bowers. The Georgia running backs finally get healthy enough to become the first team to effectively run the ball against Kentucky.

On the other side, Kentucky does not have its top two wide receivers and it makes the Cats one-dimensional. There’s no worse case scenario than playing one-dimensional football against a Kirby Smart defense. Methodical offenses of the past moved the chains against Georgia. This is an explosive offense and Devin Leary never finds a rhythm as the Dawgs figure it out and cover the spread for the first time in 2023.

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The Most Likely: It’s the Same Kentucky vs. Georgia Game

Kentucky can start faster than Georgia and still lose this football game. Even though they aren’t the same ‘ol Georgia, they’re still Georgia. They do not need an enlightened Mike Bobo to get the offense firing on all cylinders to do enough to beat a Kentucky team that shoots itself in the foot and is the SEC’s 13th-ranked team in the red zone.

Like so many other meetings between these two teams, the Cats will keep this game close enough until Kentucky misses an opportunity to take control of the game, leaving the door open for Brock Bowers to put on his superman cape. The Georgia crowd gets loud and wills the Dawgs to a win that isn’t pretty between the hedges. We’ve seen this story before and we might see it again on Saturday.

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