Starting 3-0 for the third time in the last four seasons, the University of Kentucky football team heads south to Gainesville, Fla., to begin Southeastern Conference play against the ninth-ranked Gators in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Kentucky is 21-53-2 in 76 conference openers, having won two of its last four lid-lifters with wins against Ole Miss in 2006 and Arkansas in 2007. Florida began SEC play last week at Tennessee, notching a 31-17 victory over the Vols in Knoxville...but they just didn't look like the old Gators.
Last Saturday, Kentucky posted a 47-10 win over Akron to move to 3-0 on the season. The Wildcats put together an all-around performance against the Zips, totaling 544 yards of total offense and holding the Zips to only 172 total yards. The 544 yards of total offense was the most by a UK team since posting 568 yards against Eastern Kentucky University in 2007. UK had balanced offense with 200 rushing and passing yards for a school-record third-consecutive game.
The Wildcats are looking to snap a 23-game losing streak to the Gators. The battle on Saturday against Florida will mark the 21st consecutive time UK has played a ranked UF team. Kentucky is 3-27 all-time against ranked Florida teams.
New Coach Joker Phillips talked a big game over the summer about how he was going to bring the "Mildcats to another level"……he gets his chance with a night game at the Swamp. The one playmaker on Kentucky is Randall Cobb, who will line up at WR and occasionally take direct snaps, being a former QB. Mike Hartline has not distinguished himself at QB in 3 years, and doesn’t worry the Gator defense. Derrick Locke leads the SEC in rushing, but so did Tauren Poole of Tennessee, until he ran into (repeatedly) the Gator defense.
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, or “The Swamp,” is widely recognized as one of, if not the toughest, environments for a visiting team in all of college football. Several facelifts after the stadium’s original construction in 1930 have made Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium the state-of-the-art facility you see at today’s game.
Without a bad seat in the house, "The Swamp" ranks as the largest stadium in the state of Florida. The Gators’ average attendance last season of 90,544 ranked ninth in the country. Florida’s home record of 106-13 (.891) since 1990 is the best mark in the country during that time, proving that at "The Swamp," only Gators get out alive!
Except this year....go BLUE! Joker...Joker.....Joker!!!
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