Is it fair to say the UK and Mizzou are very similar teams? Mizzou does have a better QB and maybe a slightly better receiving corps. However, UK came in a little too overconfident, and you can hardly blame them for overlooking us a little bit. Mizzou, OTOH has gotten a wake up call about this game from the results of last Saturday. They will be ready for us. If we can play a solid game like we did last week, it should be a close game. GO VOLS!
Hm. I'd say night and day on offense. UK has a very marginal passing attack and have relied almost exclusively on running the ball. Missouri has one of the top passing attacks in the conference, if not the country and a decent run game to go with it. Defensively, Missouri is a bit better against the run (30th vs. 42nd for Kentucky), but in the all-important scoring defense Kentucky is a suprising 10th and Missouri 70th(!). Kentucky's rank may be skewed a bit by teams not having to score much against them, but even factoring that in, it's a significant difference. Also encouraging is the Missouri Pass Efficiency D is 86th in the country (UK is 22nd).
On paper, Vol offense matches up well against the Missouri D. The big question is can we stop or slow their passing offense? We are currently 66th, but have faced Will Grier, Tua, Fromm, and Bentley, and were much lower earlier in the year. As I state above, I am impressed by the improvement in our defensive backfield. They will be tested Saturday. I hope we can pressure Locke, but Missouri is only allowing 1 sack per game, tied for 17th best in the country.
As others state above, if Darrell Taylor can come close to his performance against UK, we should do well. I will throw in that I also hope to see the same aggressive play from our OL.
