Hugh Freeze thinks Kentucky defensive performance vs. Florida was an outlier

The Kentucky defense put up some silly numbers against top competition. Carson Beck was the projected top pick in the upcoming NFL Draft when the Cats put him in a pretzel. The Ole Miss offense was operating better than any other unit in the country when Kentucky limited the Rebels to 17 points on their home turf.

Brad White‘s defense put the clamps on the best of the best. Then they took one to the chin from a couple of true freshmen.

There were many stunning developments during the loss to Florida. The defense gave up a season-high 48 points, Jadan Baugh rushed for five touchdowns, and five of DJ Lagway‘s seven pass completions went for 40+ yards. Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze believes the egg Kentucky laid in The Swamp was an exception, not the norm.

“It was an outlier for the Kentucky team. I mean, obviously, give Florida a ton of credit for making the explosive plays they did and playing as well as they did. Typically no one, if you look at the stats, has put up near those numbers for this year, including some very, very, very good football teams,” the Auburn head coach said during Wednesday’s SEC Teleconference.

“The job that they’ve done against explosive teams like Ole Miss and Georgia this year is probably the more realistic version of what you get from a Kentucky defense and offensively, man, they’re really well coached, and know who they are, and know how to manage a game from an offensive perspective. And so I think you’ve got to bank on seeing the best version of what we’ve seen and the most common version of what we’ve seen from them has not been — and again, you got to give Florida credit for what they did. I just know that has not been a typical thing for Kentucky’s defense, for sure.”

That’s the weird thing about the Kentucky defense. They rank second in the SEC in allowing plays of 10+ yards (65) and dead last in plays of 30+ yards (16). A unit that was defined by big-play prevention is now getting hit for chunk plays on a regular basis.

To make matters worse, Auburn’s offense is a whole lot like Florida’s. Payton Thorne is completing a low percentage of passes (59%), yet he ranks 15th nationally in yards per attempt (8.9). Nobody has completed more passes of 40+ yards than Auburn (13).

In short, Freeze’s assessment of Kentucky needs to be correct or the Cats are in danger of losing another SEC game at Kroger Field.

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