Kentucky Wildcats

Kentucky Football: Don't Take The Upcoming Opponents Lightly

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

The Kentucky football program may not have many elite opponents remaining on the schedule, but that doesn’t mean the final six games will be easy.

The Kentucky football program appears to have caught a couple of breaks in 2016. The final half of the schedule appeared to be flush with contenders, but only two of the final six teams on the schedule are ranked in the Top 25.

Though circumstances may permit optimism, it’d be naive to believe Kentucky will have a cake walk to six wins.

The road may or may not be easier, but that’s genuinely irrelevant. Kentucky isn’t a good enough team to think as though it’s the favored participant in any outing whatsoever.

The last time Kentucky did so, it blew a 35-10 lead and lost 44-35 to the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles—at home.

Furthermore, Kentucky has been one of the most inefficient offensive teams in the country. Its run game is explosive, but its passing attack is nothing if not erratic and unreliable.

For perspective, Kentucky has fewer 300-yard passing games than it does games with less than 100 passing yards.

Drew Barker threw for 323 yards and four touchdowns in Week 1, and then tallied 10 passing yards and three interceptions on 10 attempts in Week 2. Stephen Johnson threw for 310 yards and three touchdowns in Week 3, and has compiled 273 passing yards in the three games since.

That’s an average of 91.0 passing yards per game.

Thus, while it may be easy to focus on the manner in which Kentucky’s future opponents have faltered, it’s imperative to note that the Wildcats aren’t exactly the class of the conference.

Mississippi State, Missouri, and Georgia are all manageable opponents, but they’re also SEC schools with the talent to beat Kentucky. Tennessee has faltered, but it’s still one of the Top 20 schools in the country.

Louisville is a rival, which means anything could happen, but it has the Heisman Trophy frontrunner in Lamar Jackson and a 5-1 record through six games.

Even the Austin Peay game shouldn’t be taken lightly. Losing to the Governors would be a devastating result, but Kentucky hasn’t yet earned the status of a team that can enter games with a feeling of superiority.

Truthfully, no team should enter a game with the thought that they can’t lose.

The fact that Kentucky hasn’t played in a bowl game since 2010 should trump anything being said about the rest of the schedule.