Season preview: Home stretch

After about a three week hiatus, I'm back to give the final segment of my season preview. If you haven't been keeping up, we've already looked at the Non conference games, a huge three game Keeneland style homestand, and a couple of early season road games. At this point, we have UK at 5-4, with wins over YouofL, WKU, Akron, Georgia and Charleston Southern as well as losses against Florida, Ole Miss, Auburn and South Carolina.

Today we look at three more winnable games which, along with the aforementioned laugher against Charleston Southern, make up the last third of the season.

UK visits Mississippi State on October 30th. The Bulldogs should be roughly 4-4 going into this game and still entertaining bowl hopes. Expectation are higher in Dan Mullins' second year. Fortunately, Anthony Dixon is now a San Francisco 49er. During the Cats' current bowl streak the road team is 4-0 in this game, though why is anyone's guess. (It should tell you something else about what Rich Brooks accomplished that his teams went to bowls in 2007 and 2009 despite losing to Mississippi State.) By this point in the season, UK should have settled into a rhythm with its quarterback situation, and the new defensive players given a chance to gel. I like us to win another road squeeker. UK 24 MSU 21

After the Charleston Southern game on November 6, Vandy comes back to town on November 13th. Cats fans will recall a rainy, freezing cold night at Commonwealth in 2008 when Vandy got bowl eligible by beating us 31-24. The Cats brainfarted their way to a 24-10 halftime deficit, then proceeded to piss away their comeback with stupid penalties, including a brain searing three roughing the punter fouls. Well, this isn't the 2008 Vandy team. Coming off a winless SEC campaign in 2009, Vandy figures to have trouble scoring points against SEC competition. Led by All-SEC LB Chris Marve and what is said to be a solid secondary, the D should be solid. Like last year, expect this game to be Cobb, Locke, Cobb, Locke. As always, this game will be chippy, but as in most season's past, we'll have more than enough for the 'Dores. UK 24 Vandy 14.

On paper, this is the year that we finally go down and take one from Tennessee. We've been so close so many times. Derrick Dooley said that on September 4th half of his starters will be seeing their first major college snap. Think about that for a minute. That is a program in shambles. When the Cats visit Neyland on November 27th, the Vols will likely be out of the bowl picture, playing for nothing. So how could I not pick our boys to win? As I said last year, too much pain has been inflicted for me to think rationally about this game. Even though hope springs eternal. . . .UT 28 UT 24.

So there you go, another 7-5, 3-5 season with a repeat trip to the Music City Bowl. If my season previews are starting to sound like a broken record, such is life. But there are a lot of games for the Cats to go out and get this year. Will start talking about how that might happen this week.