Kentucky will be shorthanded when it hosts struggling Auburn on Saturday night.
The Wildcats (3-4, 1-4 Southeastern Conference) will be without running backs Demie Sumo-Karngbaye and Chip Trayanum, while defensive standouts Deone Walker and D’Eryk Jackson are listed as probable.
Still, Kentucky will be looking to snap a two-game losing streak, a string of setbacks that includes a 48-20 loss at Florida last week.
“We’ll be fine,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “Again, it is a tough business, it’s a tough league. Our guys understand that. They have physically got to get healthy, we have to get treatment. We have to balance that, but we have got to get prepared to play another good game.”
Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said the Wildcats are focused on improving rather than listening to the outside noise.
“I think the biggest thing is just shutting our door and being in the office,” Hamdan said. “You have to stay process driven, I really believe that. Sometimes after winning, you think you think you have it all figured out and after losses you think you are doing everything wrong.
“You have just got to stay the course. It is important for the players to understand that. That is what we are preaching to them. Every week, try to take that next step.”
Auburn (2-5, 0-4) is looking for its first conference win of the season and has struggled to finish down the stretch. The Tigers lost to Oklahoma and Missouri after leading by double digits in the fourth quarter this year.
“I know they’ve got players all over the place,” Hamdan said. “This is a team that I think is ranked 133rd in turnover margin right now. The reality is that if they were not, with the talent they have, they couldn’t be in the top third of the conference. This front seven is extremely talented. It is going to be a good matchup for us.”
Stoops added much like his squad, there is a “thin line between success and failure” for the Tigers.
“They are the same way,” Stoops said. “This is a good football team. I do not care what their record says, I know the players that they have on their roster, so we understand that for us it’s just getting back to work and doing things the best we can.”
Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said Kentucky’s performance against Florida, especially on defense, was “an outlier.”
“The job that they’ve done against explosive teams like Ole Miss and Georgia this year is probably the more realistic version of what you get from a Kentucky defense and offensively,” Freeze said. “They are well-coached and know who they are and know how to manage a game from an offensive perspective. I think you have got to bank on seeing the best version of what we’ve seen and the most common version of what we’ve seen from them.”
The Tigers have won their last nine games against the Wildcats in Lexington since the 1966 season and the last three contests played in 2010, 2015, and 2020.
Gametracker: Auburn at Kentucky, 7:45 p.m. Eastern, 6:45 p.m. Central, Saturday. TV/Radio: SEC Network, UK Radio Network (SuperTalk 94.3 WKYX and WiLLiE 102).
Photo courtesy of UKAthletics.com - Taken by Elliott Hess
