Weaker SEC Wins
After starting the year out 0-2, Mark Stoops’ Kentucky Wildcats have rattled off consecutive victories to enter October at .500. The Wildcats clobbered the New Mexico State Aggies last week and got their first SEC win of the year at home over the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Like South Carolina, reaching a bowl might be too vast of a goal for the Wildcats this season. Their Week 1 loss to the Southern Miss Golden Eagles is especially brutal now that Kentucky is almost certain another non-conference loss later in the year. There is no way that Kentucky beats Lamar Jackson’s Louisville Cardinals.
Getting to 4-4 in SEC play is still on the table for Kentucky, but this is a football program that hasn’t gone bowling since 2010. One positive takeaway that could be a sign of good things to come for the Big Blue Nation’s football team is that the Wildcats kept South Carolina to 10 points. Kentucky can score and now it showed that it can play defense for Coach Stoops.
Auburn won a ‘loser leaves town’ match with the LSU Tigers in the 2016 Tiger Bowl, 18-13. All Auburn did was kick field goals and six of there were enough to get Les Miles and Cam Cameron fired. One has to wonder how things would be done on The Plains if that last-second LSU touchdown had counted?
Though they didn’t score a touchdown and one of the trees on Toomer’s Corner caught fire, Auburn lives to fight another day at .500 entering October with its first SEC win of the season.
The offense is still a gargantuan concern for Auburn, but Kevin Steele’s defense will have this Tigers team in games it otherwise shouldn’t be in. Auburn is winning games despite abysmal offensive game planning from head coach Gus Malzahn and offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee.