I’m sure Kentucky wishes it could. Per one of the Wildcats’ beat writers:
Whitlow is really, really fast. He’s a guy who might be quite a weapon if he were a change-of-pace option, used like a Randall Cobb, in addition to injured QB Maxwell Smith. But he’s not. Because of injury, he’s the every-down QB … and he’s limited. He completed just two passes last week. With Smith at quarterback, UK averaged 34 completions per game through three games. Since he went down, the Cats have 40 total completions in four games. Unless Whitlow makes a dramatic improvement in a week, or the coaches scrap that plan and Morgan Newton is miraculously much better than he was last season (or in relief at Florida this year, when he threw three second-quarter picks), it’s hard to see Kentucky having any success through the air against a defense like this.
Before you jump on the “defense like this” observation, let me remind you that Arkansas’ pass defense makes Georgia’s look like Saban’s, and the Hogs managed to hold UK’s quarterbacks to an anemic 106.91 passer rating last week.
Which is to say that if you see the ‘Cats successfully throwing the ball all over the place tonight, my advice is to start drinking heavily.