Monday Huddle: Another Top 10 Test

The Kentucky football schedule in 2024 was brutal in the preseason. Somehow, the slate has now gotten even tougher. The Wildcats play four of the top-10 teams in college football this season. Heck, they might play four of the top five teams in college football.

The first of three road tests against the cream of the crop will occur in Week 5.

Ole Miss has outscored foes 220-23 through four games. The Rebels did not allow a touchdown until Week 4 against Georgia Southern. Lane Kiffin’s team is on cruise control but has not faced a team ranked inside the top 80 of ESPN’s SP+ rankings. Kentucky will be the biggest test yet for an Ole Miss squad with College Football Playoff expectations but this will also be UK’s first test away from home.

Mark Stoops and his program have a chance to go take another swing at one of the best teams in the sport. Kentucky had Georgia on the ropes in Week 3. Can the Wildcats push Ole Miss to the brink in Week 5?

KSR’s Monday Huddle begins the football week by taking an early look at the matchup.

First Down: Matching up against Lane Kiffin’s spread-tempo offense

The matchup on Saturday between Kentucky and Ole Miss will be the third head-to-head battle between Mark Stoops and Lane Kiffin. In those matchups, the Rebels outscored Kentucky 64-60 needing overtime in 2020 and multiple forced fumbles in the fourth quarter in 2022 to leave each matchup with a victory.

Kentucky struggled to match up with the spread tempo in 2020. Despite holding the Ole Miss tailbacks to 72 yards on 19 carries, the Wildcats were blistered through the air with Matt Corral logging an 82.8 percent completion rate posting 11 yards per attempt while throwing for 320 yards and four touchdowns. In the second meeting, Kentucky’s pass defense was much better (51.7% completion rate allowed, 7.3 yards per attempt, 0 touchdowns) facing Jaxson Dart in his first SEC start.

In both matchups, Kentucky had to be ready for tempo and everything that brings. That means no substitutions, lining up quickly, and defending super spread sets facing an offense with many borrowed principles from Art Briles’ veer-and-shoot attack. The Wildcats weren’t ready in the first meeting but were more than up to the challenge in the second meeting limiting Ole Miss to a 37 percent success rate and giving the offense multiple chances to win the game in the fourth quarter.

Can Kentucky replicate that performance?

Ole Miss is again hitting the tempo gas pedal on offense that leads college football in success rate (55.5%) and ranks inside the top 15 in both EPA/rush and EPA/dropback. Henry Parrish Jr. is one of only four backs to surpass 400 rushing yards this season and owns a 29.8 percent explosive run rate. Jaxson Dart is completing 79.8 percent of his passes on 13.1 yards per attempt with 15 total touchdowns. The three-year starter has thrown for at least 370 yards in each start this season. Tre Harris ranks second nationally in receiving yards (628) and just went for over 200 yards on 11 grabs against Georgia Southern.

We need to see what Ole Miss can do against some of the top defenses in the country, but all signs point to this being a top-five offense in college football. How does Kentucky match up with that? It will be critical for the Wildcats to stop the run and try to make Ole Miss one-dimensional. Can Kentucky accomplish that out of a two-high structure without sacrificing numbers in the backend?

For the Wildcats to win this football game, you feel like they would have to make Ole Miss lean heavily on its dropback game. That’s easier said than done.

Second Down: Will traditional complementary football be enough?

We’ve seen Kentucky play four games. On defense, the Wildcats have been excellent through 16 quarters outside of a couple of coverage busts against South Carolina. On offense, the Wildcats were unbelievably bad in Week 2 but have looked good-to-competent in every other game. Alex Raynor is quickly pushing for All-American honors at kicker, and new punter Aidan Laros flashed his powerful leg in Week 4. Barion Brown is still one of the best kick returners in the country.

The passing game (and the pass protection) are still a pretty significant work in progress, but Kentucky has a clear winning identity: ball control offense, good defense, and quality kicking game.

Will that be enough to defeat Ole Miss? I’m not so sure.

The Ole Miss defense ranks No. 4 in rushing success rate allowed and No. 13 in EPA/rush, but this unit overwhelmed two sub-100 rushing attacks (Middle Tennessee and Georgia Southern) and got an efficient Wake Forest rushing attack (No. 42 in success rate) behind the chains effectively. That will be harder to do against Kentucky. The Wildcats are clearly the best rushing attack that Ole Miss has seen and should find some success staying ahead of the chains in the run game.

Ball control will help Kentucky shrink the game on Saturday, but eventually, Ole Miss will find ways to move the football and score points. Kentucky will need some explosive plays to win. That means that the passing game must create some big plays. That is a worry for the Wildcats entering this contest.

The Kentucky offense had its best passing performance of the season throwing for 282 yards on 10.4 yards per attempt with a 70.4 completion percentage in the 41-6 win over Ohio on Saturday. However, the Wildcats took two sacks, and one killed a scoring opportunity. Brock Vandagriff has seen a pressure rate north of 40 percent on 97 dropbacks and that is not giving this throw game many chances to succeed since a scramble drill is needed on nearly half of the called pass plays. That’s concerning facing an Ole Miss defense that has produced 100 pressures through four games. The Rebels have six players with at least 10 pressures. An effective Kentucky pass rush has zero players with double-digit pressures.

At some point in this game, Kentucky will need to rely on its dropback passing game to create some explosive plays for the Wildcats to have a chance to win. The pass protection issues are very concerning entering this matchup since Ole Miss has shown early that their pass rush has a chance to be among the best in college football this season.

Kentucky got swallowed up by the South Carolina rush. If the same happens on Saturday, it could be a long day for the road team at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

Third Down: Stealing possessions

In the narrow 13-12 loss to Georgia, one of the more wild stats to come out of that game was that Kentucky lost the turnover battle and still arguably should’ve beaten the No. 1 team. Kentucky could not get the one bounce on defense to swing that game. The same has been true in the Ole Miss series.

If Will Levis does not fumble twice in the fourth quarter, Kentucky leaves Oxford with a huge road win in 2022. D’Eryk Jackson also dropped an interception in that game. Back in 2020, Kentucky’s defense did not force one takeaway in the shootout loss. That had a huge impact on the game.

Through four games this season, Kentucky sits at plus-one in the turnover column having forced five takeaways through four games. The Wildcats rank No. 4 overall in defensive havoc rate (18.8%). Ole Miss has not yet seen a defense with the size, speed, and talent that Kentucky has. The Wildcats will force some negative plays and must capitalize when those return.

But the other side of the football is a concern.

Kentucky only has four turnovers lost in the first four weeks, but that number could easily be more. Opposing defenses have forced six fumbles in the first month of the season, but the Wildcats have only lost one fumble all year. Kentucky does not have much fumble luck on defense through four games, but the opposite is true on offense. That is concerning facing an Ole Miss defense that ranks No. 2 nationally in havoc rate (19.2%).

The Wildcats likely need to steal a possession or two to have a real chance at winning on Saturday. Kentucky’s offense will have difficulties driving the length of the field consistently but could find some success if the defense sets up some short fields.

Where this game sits halfway through the fourth quarter will likely be determined by who wins the turnover battle.

The week ahead at KSR

The third conference game of the season has arrived, and KSR will provide the Big Blue Nation with in-depth pregame content from now until kickoff arrives on Saturday afternoon.

We will have full coverage of Mark Stoops’ press conference on Monday before breaking down the fifth depth chart of the season. From there, practice reports and daily podcasts will take over as Saturday approaches. Our first availability report of the week will drop on Wednesday where we will learn the status of tailback Chip Trayanum and if linebacker Daveren Rayner is ready to go after missing last week.

Over at KSR+, we will have our in-depth scouting report on Ole Miss will go live on Thursday along with some more pregame content before the games finally start. It’s time to get this party started.

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Kentucky sits at .500 heading into Week 5 and finds itself as another double-digit dog in a conference contest. The Wildcats get to take another swing at a top-10 opponent. After nearly connecting on a knockout punch against Georgia, can the Wildcats find a way to get Ole Miss on the ropes?

We will find out in Oxford.