COLUMBIA, Mo. — There’s been some holding of horses in Lexington, Kentucky. Just a couple of days after No. 24 Kentucky’s 51-13 blowout loss to top-ranked Georgia, Wildcats coach Mark Stoops answered a fan question on his radio show by encouraging “anybody that’s disgruntled to pony up some more” donations to UK’s name, image and likeness collectives.
The suggestion rankled some fans of the team that plays 78 miles from the Churchill Downs pony palace, drawing Stoops to walk back his comment during a weekly media conference call with Southeastern Conference coaches.
“To me, I was responding to one person at a radio show. And that was one part that was taken completely out of context. I love our fans, whether they give one cent, one dollar or a lot of money. It doesn’t matter,” Stoops said during the teleconference. “I simply really was trying to rally people.”
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How Kentucky (5-1 overall, 2-1 SEC) rallies will be a key factor Saturday when Missouri (5-1, 1-1) visits a sold-out Kroger Field. The game kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Central on the SEC Network.
The Wildcats’ loss to the Bulldogs in Athens, Georgia, was a brutal one. Kentucky gained just 183 yards of total offense to Georgia’s 608. By halftime, UK trailed 34-7.
“When you’re playing the No. 1 team in the country on the road at night, every mistake you make is magnified. I think that’s just what happened to Kentucky,” Mizzou coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “You can tell they have a lot of pride in their performance. They’re going to be really fired up to say that was not who they really are — which I don’t believe it was. So we’re going to have our hands full: I don’t anticipate that it’ll be a similar style game at all to that one.”
Running back Ray Davis headlines the Wildcats’ offense with 653 yards and eight touchdowns. He has the ninth-most rushing yardage in the Football Bowl Subdivision and has picked up 405 of those yards after contact, according to Pro Football Focus.
Davis dashed into the national conversation of top running backs after dropping 280 yards and four scores Sept. 30 on Florida.
“Really good vision and burst,” Drinkwitz said. “I think he’s running faster this year than maybe even he did last year. But he’s now going behind a really good offensive line.”
While Davis is new to UK, he’s a familiar foe for Missouri’s defense, which held him to 28 yards on 15 attempts last year while Davis was playing for Vanderbilt.
Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary has been vulnerable of late. After four years at North Carolina State, he’s had a tough go at SEC opponents, completing just 46% of his passes in conference play. In his past two games — the Georgia loss and Florida win — Leary has thrown more incompletions than completions, though he managed to throw zero interceptions after five in the Wildcats’ first four games.
When throwing downfield, Leary has been far more dangerous slinging the ball to his left than his right. On throws targeting a receiver between 10 and 20 yards from the line of scrimmage, he’s five for nine to the left and three for nine to the right. On throws going more than 20 yards, Leary is five for 11 to his left and only one for 11 to his right.
Those passes tend to be spread between three wide receivers, all of whom have at least 250 yards so far this season. Barion Brown leads the team in targets, with 41, but has only 20 receptions and one touchdown. Tayvion Robinson has taken 21 catches for 317 yards and three touchdowns, while Dane Key has 16 catches for 261 yards and two touchdowns.
The run game has been the focal point of Kentucky’s offense so far this year. The Wildcats slightly prefer zone blocking plays to gap blocks and have used “12” personnel — one running back, two tight ends — on 34% of snaps this season, according to Sports Info Solutions’ tracking. Mizzou, for reference, deploys 12 personnel looks only 16% of the time.
Defensively, UK’s line leads the scouting report.
“They play the box well,” MU quarterback Brady Cook said. “Their big guys up front are obviously very good players.”
“They’ve always had big, physical defensive linemen, and that is the case again this year,” Drinkwitz said. “I think Deone Walker is an elite player at the D-line position for them; he plays all kinds of places.”
Walker, a 6-6, 348-pound interior defensive lineman, has pressured quarterbacks 20 times with three sacks. He’s alternated rushing from the left and the right rather evenly.
It’s his area of the field, too, that might well determine the game.
“It’s always been a very physical contest,” Drinkwitz said. “The team that seems to rush the ball better seems to be the team that’s going to win the game — definitely a trench-style game on both sides.”