The Kentucky Wildcats travel to Nashville, TN to play the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at LP Field tonight at 7pm eastern on ESPNNews.
The announcers for tonight’s game are Joe Davis and David Diaz-Infante. The sideline reporter is Kris Budden.
Kentucky is a 4.5 point favorite.
Here is the background on tonight’s contest:
Kentucky is in its first season under head coach Mark Stoops, who was hired on Nov. 27, 2012 as the 37th head coach in school history. Since arriving, Stoops has reenergized the UK fan base, evident by over a school-record 50,000 fans at the Blue-White Scrimmage earlier this spring.
WKU enters its 94th season of football and celebrates its 100-year anniversary of the birth of the program at the University, under first-year head coach Bobby Petrino, who became the school’s 18th head coach on Dec. 10, 2012.
UK football has an all-time record of 83-34-5 (.701) in season openers, including a 13-18-1 (.423) mark away from home. UK is 8-16-1 in true road season openers and 5-2 in neutral site season openers. UK has won five of its last six season openers. UK’s season opening loss to Louisville last season was its first since 2006.
In season openers, Petrino is 8-0, including a 4-0 mark against Kentucky while at Louisville. Petrino’s Cardinals also never trailed against the Wildcats. In all, Petrino is 4-1 all-time against UK.
This is the second time that Kentucky and WKU have met to open up the season with UK winning the previous battle 14-3 at LP Field in Nashville in 2011.
Saturday marks the end of a four-game series agreement between WKU and UK, which began in 2010. After winning the first two games of the series, in Lexington (2010) and in Nashville (2011), the Wildcats fell to the Hilltoppers 32-31 in overtime last year in Lexington.
Depth Chart
Kentucky Wildcats
QB: Maxwell Smith or Jalen Whitlow
RB: Raymond Sanders
FB: D.J. Warren
WR: Demarco Robinson
WR: Daryl Collins
WR: Javess Blue
TE: Jordan Aumiller
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
QB: Brandon Doughty
RB: Antonio Andrews
FB: Nick Balsch
WR: Joe German
WR: Taywan Taylor
WR: Willie McNeal
TE: Mitchell Henry
