What we know heading into Kentucky vs. Louisville

On Saturday, Kentucky and Louisville will face each other on the gridiron for the 34th time. For the eighth season in a row, this game will be taking place on Thanksgiving Saturday. This one feels very critical for both sides.

Scott Satterfield is looking to get on the right side of this series for the first time after two embarrassing losses to start his tenure. Plus his fourth Louisville squad has a great chance to finish the season ranked after a terrific run over the last six weeks. Meanwhile, Kentucky has had a very disappointing year under Mark Stoops with the offense coming up woefully short of expectations and having already dropped home games to South Carolina and Vanderbilt. There will be a boatload of criticism if Kentucky drops a third home game as a favorite.

Saturday’s game is huge for a multitude of reasons. Let’s dive into what we know before the big rivalry game kicks off.

Dealing with Louisville’s havoc

Seemingly out of nowhere, defensive coordinator Bryan Brown has built a top-25 defense this season at Louisville. The Cards returned five super seniors from last year’s unit and went into the transfer portal to find three high-quality contributors. The results have been outstanding.

UofL enters Week 13 ranking No. 15 in defensive EPA, No. 17 in points per drive, and No. 19 in red zone touchdown percentage. The Cards are having an outstanding year on this side of the football, and most of it is due to havoc creation.

Louisville ranks No. 1 in sacks (41), No. 2 in takeaways (28), and No. 11 in tackles for loss (81). Brown’s unit is outstanding at creating negative plays and that is the main reason why this defense is having so much success.

At times, this team has been susceptible to explosive plays through the air, and four teams have put up more than 5.0 yards per rush on the ground, but havoc production is getting offenses behind the chains and leading to turnovers.

Throughout this season, Kentucky’s offense has had a very hard time limiting havoc. The offensive line ranks No. 126 in sacks allowed (40) and No. 107 in tackles for loss allowed (75). Meanwhile, Will Levis has thrown 10 interceptions and has a high pass defended rate (13.3%) on 264 passes.

There should be some running room for Chris Rodriguez Jr. and opportunities to create explosive plays via the passing game, but a drive can be over at any moment thanks to Louisville’s ability to create negatives. Limiting those and taking care of the football is the ultimate task for Rich Scangarello on offense.

Handling an inefficient offense

The defense has been awesome at Louisville, but the offense has taken a step back in year four under Scott Satterfield. Despite having a plethora of senior starters and one of the most experienced quarterbacks in college football, the Cards have struggled to score points.

Injuries have piled up, but most importantly, this is an inefficient offense.

Louisville enters Week 13 ranking No. 77 in points per drive, No. 93 in success rate, No. 99 in third/fourth down conversions, and No. 112 in red zone touchdown percentage. When Louisville cannot create explosive plays, this offense struggles.

Malik Cunningham is putting up a career-low 7.1 yards per attempt and a non-impressive passing success rate (42.7%). Top tailback Jawhar Jordan has an ugly 36.9 percent rushing success rate. The Cards get behind the chains a lot.

Kentucky must make sure this offense stays behind the chains.

The Cats enter this game ranking No. 20 in defensive success rate and that must play out on Saturday. If Brad White’s defense gets UofL behind the chains, good things will happen.

However, it must be pointed out that Louisville’s offense has been fairly explosive. Cunningham is averaging 6.8 yards on non-sack rushes with 11 touchdowns on the ground. Tyler Hudson has 29 receptions of 15 or more yards. Kentucky must keep the explosives in check, but if the defensive efficiency is strong it should be hard for this Louisville offense to consistently score points on Saturday.

Most likely, Kentucky will need to hold its opponent under 21 points to win the game on Saturday. That task seems very achievable if the Cats can get Louisville behind the sticks.

Pound the rock

Kentucky has a three-game winning streak in this rivalry series largely due to dominance on the ground. In each of the last three meetings, Kentucky has set a season-high for rushing yards against Louisville.

Over the last five meetings in the series, Kentucky is averaging 335.2 rushing yards per game on 7.6 yards per rush with 22 rushing touchdowns. During this run, the Cats are averaging 42.2 points per game.

If Kentucky is to have another season-best performance, it will be due to what this rushing attack can put together against what is still a small defensive front at Louisville. Most of the rushing attention is being paid to Will Levis after his big performance last year, but Chris Rodriguez Jr. has already had two huge games against Louisville.

As a redshirt freshman in 2019, Rodriguez rushed for 125 yards on nine attempts. Last season, the tailback rolled up 121 yards on 16 attempts. Kentucky will need another efficient and explosive performance from their star tailback on Saturday, but this time with a heavier workload.

When facing similar aggressive defenses against Mississippi State and Missouri, Rodriguez logged 60 combined carries on 133 offensive snaps. We should expect a similar workload from RB1 on Saturday to help negate some of Louisville’s blitz packages.

Kentucky needs a good performance from Rodriguez on Saturday to score points. A great performance could lead to the best offensive output of the season. Recent history tells us that there should be some rushing room available against Louisville. Plus, the Cards have had some iffy moments in run support this season.

Expect Kentucky to ride No. 24 on Saturday.