Auburn Football: 3 bold predictions for ranked battle vs. Kentucky

Kentucky heads into Jordan-Hare as a ranked team, but many predictions show a certain disrespect as most experts lean towards Auburn football.

The Kentucky Wildcats head into Jordan-Hare as a ranked team, but many predictions show a certain disrespect to Kentucky as most experts lean towards Auburn winning easily.

Kentucky has one of the best offensive lines in the country and one of the better defenses, though. Auburn comes into this game with the expectation that second-year starter Bo Nix will make the next leap forward and control the game from the get-go.

Although Jordan-Hare will not be at its full capacity, the school is allowing 17,000-plus fans in which most of whom will be students. Without further delay, here are three bolder than bold predictions you won’t see on ESPN 3.

3. Terry Wilson Jr. will struggle mightily

The biggest storyline for the Wildcats heading into Saturday has to be the performance of their starting quarterback, Terry Wilson. After suffering a season-ending knee injury, Wilson spent the entire offseason getting back into playing form, and all of the signs point to that he is healthy.

On his call-in radio show two weeks ago, Mark Stoops was very confident in Wilson’s ability to come back fully from his injury and run the offense.

"“I expect him to run the offense better than he did prior to the injury. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he will. You have to stay healthy. I feel like he’s 100 percent back from this injury, as far as healing. When you’re out for that amount of time, there’s definitely some rust, but Terry looked very sharp during camp and to begin the season prior to his injury, and he improved from the year before that.”"

Despite Stoops’ confidence, I do expect Wilson to struggle. It’s been a long time since he took a snap under center. Although Stoops and more than likely the coaching staff are positive about Terry’s recovery, the rust factor could very well be an issue.

If Kentucky’s offensive line can’t win the battle upfront in the trenches, getting Kavosiey Smoke, AJ Rose and Chris Rodriguez the touches necessary to make this offense successful; expect Wilson to struggle. Last year’s offense consisted of a run-first attack even before Wilson went down. It’s been that way since