Saturday, October 23, 2004
Tigers figure to prey on Cats
Auburn seeks to avoid letdown
By John Zenor
The Associated Press
AUBURN, Ala. - Rich Brooks wants to convince Kentucky's players they can win. Tommy Tuberville's task is to make sure his No. 3 Auburn Tigers understand they could actually lose.
It's anyone's guess who had the toughest job entering Saturday's game at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
The Tigers (7-0, 4-0 Southeastern Conference) breeze in with national title aspirations and a newly minted No. 4 standing in the Bowl Championship Series.
The Wildcats (1-5, 0-3) have lost four in a row, are four-touchdown underdogs and have won only once in 12 trips to Auburn. Plus, quarterback Shane Boyd is questionable with a shoulder injury, meaning redshirt freshman Andre Woodson could make his first career start.
Brooks isn't sugarcoating what it will take for his team to win: "a near-perfect game."
If that happens, he said, "I still believe and I think our players believe that we have a chance to beat anyone.
"This is the best team we've seen, and in my opinion, it's not even close. They don't have a weakness," he said.
The Wildcats nearly beat South Carolina last week, losing on a touchdown pass by the Gamecocks' fourth-string quarterback with 1:28 left. They also had a respectable, 20-3 loss to Florida, and Brooks is hoping those two games will give his team confidence against the Tigers.
Confidence isn't a problem for the Tigers, who are coming off a 38-20 victory over Arkansas, their fifth blowout in a row. Overconfidence? Now, that's what Tuberville must guard against.
"No matter whether you're at home or on the road, when you're a top-ranked team, you've got a bigger bull's eye or target on your back," Tuberville said. "And people are going to know that they're going to have to play better to beat you. So you usually get a better game out of those teams than maybe they would have played during the year.
"To pay the price of being a ranked team, you've got to play like a team that's one of the best teams in the country."
Statistically, Auburn vs. Kentucky is a huge mismatch.
The Tigers rank in the Top 3 in the SEC in each of the nine major offensive and defensive categories. The Wildcats are in the bottom three in eight of them.
Auburn is outgaining opponents by 185 yards on average; Kentucky is getting outgained by 132.
Wildcat linebacker Jon Sumrall knows the statistics, at least, don't add up to a competitive game.
"I don't expect many people to give us a chance, because we're 1-5, and they're 7-0," Sumrall said. "If you gave us a chance, just being an innocent bystander, I probably wouldn't think that was very smart.
"But I think the guys on our team believe that we can go in there and play football with them."
Auburn linebacker Antarrious Williams said there is "no chance" of a letdown for the Tigers.
"A lot of people are going to come out and say this is going to be an easy game for us, but it's an SEC game," Williams said. "I know Kentucky's had some pretty tough games this year, but they came out and fought. So we've just got to be ready for them.
"We can't have a letdown. We've just got to keep working hard and keep getting better and better every week."
UK at No. 3 Auburn
