The biggest game of the Week 7 college football slate pits the Kentucky Wildcats against the Georgia Bulldogs. Both teams come into this game with perfect 6-0 records. Though the season is only about halfway over, the winner of this game will put themselves into the driver’s seat in the SEC East division.
Though Georgia is indeed a heavy favorite, don’t expect the Wildcats to give them an easy game. Let’s break down the offense and defense of each team and supply a Best Bet for this SEC heavyweight matchup.
Kentucky Offense vs. Georgia Defense
Wildcats QB Will Levis has improved quite a bit as a passer. The 6-3 junior has tossed 11 touchdowns and has 1,134 passing yards. He has, however, thrown six picks and will need to avoid any errant throws against a very opportunistic Bulldogs defense. The Wildcats prefer to run the football, as they only average around 21 pass attempts per game (124th in the nation).
The Georgia defense is hands down the best in the country. They lead college football in points per game, yards per game, and yards per play (teamrankings.com). It’s extremely difficult to run on this Bulldog front seven, as they only give up 2.2 yards per rush. Their secondary is also stingy, as they only allow 5.1 yards per pass (#3 in the country).
Georgia Offense vs. Kentucky Defense
Though starting QB JT Daniels has been out with a strained lat, Stetson Bennett has done a fine job of running this Georgia offense. Bennett has thrown for 746 yards and eight touchdowns so far this year. He’s shown the ability to gouge defenses with deep play-action passes and will look to do that against this Kentucky secondary. Georgia averages 9.6 yards per pass, which ranks 10th in the nation.
The heart and soul of this Kentucky team is their defense. Mark Stoops has this group playing with a high level of confidence, especially after beating both Florida and LSU. The Wildcats are solid against both the run and the pass, so it’s hard for opposing offenses to know to attack them. One tiny weakness for this unit has been their inability to get off the field on third down, as they only rank 59th in the nation in that crucial category.
Our Pick: UNDER 44.5
We’ve cashed the Under in Georgia’s games the last two weeks so we’re going back for more this week. Both of these teams are blessed with a plethora of talent on defense, which leads us to believe that this will be another low-scoring game. Though Kentucky gave up 21 points to LSU last week, they only allowed 13 to Florida the week before that.
We think the Wildcats can slow down Georgia’s offense just enough to keep them in the football game. On the flip side, we just don’t see how Kentucky’s offense is going to score many points against this nasty Georgia defense. We think this is an SEC slugfest, so take the UNDER. Good luck!