What we know heading into Music City Bowl

The 2022 Kentucky football team will play its final game of the season on Saturday after a month off after the regular season ended. However, things will look much different in the Music City Bowl.

The Wildcats find themselves up against Iowa for the second postseason in a row, but this game has much less buzz. But it’s time to get ready for a football game that could be low scoring and very hard-hitting.

Let’s set the table for what we know heading into the matchup between the Cats and the Hawks.

New QBs will provide different wrinkles

Kentucky and Iowa have many similarities. Both Kirk Ferentz and Mark Stoops are members of the Hayden Fry coaching tree who believe in a similar philosophy. Each program utilizes a ball control offense and plays sound defense looking to limit explosive plays.

Iowa and Kentucky both had strong defenses in 2022 but the offense let each program down with woeful performances this season. Each program is making offseason changes and bringing in Power Five transfer quarterbacks to run the show next year. In many ways, all eyes are on 2023 in Iowa City and Lexington but a game must be played in 2022 first.

Both offenses will be turning to dual-threat quarterbacks.

Joe Labas and Destin Wade were both off-script playmakers in high school who have quickly made an impact behind the scenes running the scout team for some of this season. Now each freshman will get a chance to earn their first career start in the Music City Bowl.

Expect some different wrinkles for each offense to take advantage of the athletic quarterbacks. That could lead to some unexpected early success for both offenses.

Expect a low scoring game

Despite the changes at quarterback, the overall identity of Iowa and Kentucky football is not changing. This is a matchup of two top-15 defenses and we should expect a bunch of stops.

Phil Parker and Brad White are two of the best defensive coordinators in college football and they’re facing two offenses in bad spots. Kentucky has a think tank play-calling situation after dismissing Rich Scangarello and there seems to be a solid chance that Kirk Ferentz could make an offensive coordinator change after the bowl game.

The defenses will have a big advantage in this football game. Expect a lot of punts on Saturday. Whichever defense forces more takeaways could have the ultimate advantage in the game.

Iowa’s kicking game is very good

The “punt to win” brand is strong in Iowa City. Much of Iowa’s winning formula is tied to strong punting and placekicking.

After losing Caleb Shudak to the NFL, Drew Stevens has stepped in at placekicker to 16 of 18 attempts with both misses coming from 40-plus yards. Stevens also has a touchback rate of 56.9 percent, but the punter is the star at Iowa.

Tory Taylor ranks No. 6 nationally in punts per game (6.2), but most of that work has been efficient. Iowa ranks No. 15 nationally in net punting average (41.2) has pinned 32 punts inside the 20, and has seen 22 attempts travel over 50 yards. The Australian is a true weapon.

The Hawkeyes are very, very good in the third phase as this program puts a huge emphasis on winning the field position battle.

Kentucky must win the explosive play battle

On paper, Iowa seems to have the better defense and kicking game. The Hawkeyes have a more proven commodity at tailback with Kaleb Johnson emerging as a legit RB1 over the last five games. The one major advantage the Wildcats have is its explosiveness.

While splash plays have been hit-and-miss this season, Barion Brown, Dane Key, and Tayvion Robinson have all produced explosive receptions this year. JuTahn McClain also has a bit more speed than Chris Rodriguez. If Kentucky is going to win the game, the offense will likely need to produce a couple of huge chunk plays to set up some easy scores.

Those home run plays will be needed to score points against Iowa.