By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Kentucky has its sights set on bigger and better things going into the final month of the regular season.
Coming off a bye week, the No. 8 Wildcats (7-1, 5-1 Southeastern Conference) are tied with Georgia for first place in the SEC standings and look to expand on their success at No. 16 Tennessee on Saturday.
Stein said the bye week came “at the perfect time,” and gave his team a chance to get healthy for the rest of the season.
“I’m not sure everybody on our roster would have been able to play (last) Saturday if we had (played),” Stein said Tuesday. “I think guys would have been for sure questionable, but I feel really good heading into this next week that we’re going to be about full strength.”
Like Kentucky, the Volunteers (6-2, 3-2) had a bye week on Halloween but found themselves in recovery mode following a 27-24 loss at South Carolina on Oct. 24 in Columbia.
Tennessee is six points away from being undefeated after losing two games by three points, including a 20-17 setback to Texas, which was ranked No. 1 at the time.
“I think they’re playing extremely well as a as a team, they could easily be 8-0,” Stein said. “You know, they had a close loss to Texas at home and obviously lost to South Carolina on the last-second field goal. This will be a really big test for us as a program going into a hostile environment in Knoxville.”
Tennessee has won 19 of the last 20 games in Knoxville. Kentucky’s last win over the Volunteers at Neyland Stadium was a 34-7 victory six years ago.
“We don’t talk about anything that happened in the past,” Stein said. “There’s really no reason to. It doesn’t do anything with our current team.”
Kentucky has been successful on the road this season and has a 3-0 record in its away games at Texas A&M, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
“I don’t think there’s any tricks,” Stein said. “I think just the reality is every single game you have to execute in all three phases and you have to do your job.
“I know we’ve talked about in here a bunch. Takeaways and not turning the ball over has been a big piece in us winning and winning games. The lack of penalties has helped as well, especially on the road.”
Connections
Kentucky quarterback Kenny Minchey played prep football at Pope John Paul II Preparatory in Hendersonville, while offensive lineman Lance Heard played three seasons for the Volunteers and defensive lineman Tyler Thomas’ twin brother, Trent Thomas, is a tight end at Tennessee Running back Martels Carter is from Chattanooga and defensive lineman Kalen Edwards hails from Dyersburg.
Game set
Kentucky’s contest against Florida is set for 6 or 7 p.m. on Nov. 14 and will be televised on ESPN.
NEXT GAME: Kentucky at Tennessee, 6 p.m. Saturday. TV/Radio: ESPN (Tom Hart, Roddy Jones and Quint Kessenich). UK Radio Network (Tom Leach, Jeff Piecoro and Dick Gabriel)