Kentucky crushed with injuries heading into heated rivalry with Tennessee

Kentucky football is not in a good place in so many ways. They are flailing in the deep end of the SEC pool and are on a three-game losing streak heading into their rivalry game with Tennessee. The Wildcats have only one SEC win all year against Ole Miss, and they are running out of opportunities. The only conference games left on their schedule are against top-10 teams in Tennessee and Texas. Oh, and they have a season-high of 10 players already listed out for this game.

This list of players includes seven starters with some big names on there, like Gerald Mincey, the starting tackle transfer from Tennessee, and Maxwell Hairston, who has been out for a few weeks but is one of the best defensive backs on the roster. You also see that Chip Trayanum is there again and we may never see him again this season, he cannot stay healthy.

Kentucky is down 10+ players and 7 of them are starters.

To make matters worse, Tennessee only has 4 players out, and their injury report is inconsequential. In a game that was already going to be an uphill battle, Kentucky is going in with all the odds stacked against them. Going on the road to Neyland Stadium is tough, going on the road to Neyland at night with a momentum of "dark mode" and black-out stadium conditions is tougher, and throw in the fact that Kentucky is running out of healthy players, is the toughest.

There just doesn't seem to be anything going in favor of the Kentucky Wildcats right now. However, if there is one thing that head coach Mark Stoops has done well over the years, it is a "backed into a corner" gritty fight. He knows how to get his team to wear the chip and then play with a chip. If there is any shot of winning this week, it'll be that Tennesee is already looking towards Georgia in a few weeks and Kentucky comes in aggressive with nothing to lose. The ESPN predictor matchup has the Volunteers favored 90.1% to win this game. Not good.