When Missouri (5-1) travels to Lexington, Kentucky to face No. 24 Kentucky (5-1) in Week 7, the game will likely be a lot different from the games each team just played a week ago.

Missouri lost 49-39 to LSU in a high-scoring affair and gave up 533 total yards to the Bayou Bengals, while Kentucky lost 51-13 to Georgia and allowed 608 total yards.

When the Tigers and Wildcats face off they won't be dealing with the same caliber of offenses when they face each other, but it will be a good matchup, nonetheless, but for a few different reasons.

This game will be a battle of the trenches, with loads of physicality and whoever can play the most complementary football will likely come out the winner.

Missouri enters the game with the nation's 22nd-best offense and 51st-ranked defense, while Kentucky enters with the 85th-ranked offense and 46th-ranked defense.

Those stats are important, but there are some other factors that will likely factor into the outcome of this divisional battle.

So, here are three things we are looking at that may determine the winner of this week's game.

The run game will be very important this week for both teams on both sides of the ball.

Kentucky is a physical team that goes as running back Ray Davis and the team's 70th-ranked rushing attack (151.2 yards per game) goes.

Davis, who has been on a tear this season, has rushed for 653 yards and eight touchdowns on 91 carries (7.18 yards per carry) The Vanderbilt transfer also has 404 yards after contact.

All of those statistics rank in the top 10 nationally.

"They run the ball really well with the transfer running back Ray Davis. I think he's one of the best running backs in this league," Drinkwitz said during his Media Day on Tuesday. "He has really good vision and burst. I think he's running faster this year than maybe he did last year."

Mizzou entered Week 6 with the eighth-best run defense in the FBS and slid down 20 spots after its performance.

Last week, Missouri allowed LSU to rack up 274 rushing yards after previously only allowing a little less than 75 yards per game. Running back Logan Diggs and quarterback Jayden Daniels each rushed for at least 130 yards and a touchdown.

Mizzou won't have to worry about Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary trying to scramble or rush the ball too much, but if Missouri allows another big day on the ground, it will set up play-action.

When Daniels got play action to open up for him last week, he completed 5-of-5 passes for 140 yards, two touchdowns and a grade of 90.6, according to PFF College.

Leary is 36-of-63 for 542 yards, eight touchdowns, an interception and a grade of 70.7 on play-action.

For Missouri offensively, it has gotten some great production out of running backs Cody Schrader and Nathaniel Peat. The former fought through a lingering quad injury to play last week and racked up 13 rushes for 114 yards and three touchdowns.

He's got 577 yards and six touchdowns on 94 carries (6.1 yards per carry).

Peat has 266 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 58 carries (4.6 yards per carry).

Together, they lead Mizzou's 84th-ranked rushing attack at 143.5 yards per game.

Kentucky enters this game with the 13th-best run defense in the FBS, allowing 92 yards per game.

This season, Missouri has gone up against a similarly ranked run defense when it beat Kansas State in Week 3.

The Wildcats of Manhattan are currently one spot behind the Wildcats of Kentucky with the 14th-best run defense in the nation, allowing just 93.4 rushing yards per game.

In that game, Missouri only rushed for 74 yards on 28 attempts (2.6 yards per carry).

"The team that seems to rush the ball better seems to be the team that's going to win the game," Drinkwitz said. "Definitely a trench-style game on both sides. And we're going to have to make sure we're ready for the physical style of play that they have."

Mizzou's special teams struggles have been well-documented this season.

Preseason All-Southeastern Conference second-team kicker Harrison Mevis has had a very inconsistent season to say the least with some highs and lows. He's only made 8-of-13 field goal attempts this season but he did make a 61-yard game-winning field goal to beat Kansas State in Week 3.

He did make his next three field goal attempts after that kick before going 1-of-3 last week. He's also 24-of-25 on PATs, which is good, but he'd never missed a PAT heading into this season.

"There's some fundamental things that have to occur both on the punt and on the field goal," Drinkwitz said of the missed field goals in Week 6. "The timing of the field goal, we were late in the operation phase, we've got to trust that the snap and the hold are going to get there and take off at the right time so that we're not rushing our kick and end up pulling it."

Missouri has already made changes at punter, with Riley Williams getting replaced by walk-on Luke Bauer in Week 4.

Williams was averaging 40.3 yards per punt on 12 punts, while Bauer is averaging 44.5 yards per punt on eight punts, which would rank ninth in the SEC if he qualified for the league leaders.

Bauer has been an improvement over Williams but he's still battling inconsistency like Williams was. The walk-on had two punts in Week 6, his first went 17 yards and his second went an SEC-best 73 yards.

As a unit, Missouri ranks 74th in punting at 41.95 yards per punt.

"On the punt, we've got to be consistent in our drops. And that's really where the inaccuracies are punting game has," Drinkwitz said. "There's been an inaccuracy in making sure that our drops are consistent so that our swing can come through accurately."

The Tigers are 50th in punt returns at 10 yards per return and 85th on kickoff returns at 18.54 yards per attempt. But honestly, they're better off fair catching every kickoff and getting it at the 25-yard line.

Lastly, Mizzou is 92nd in punt return defense allowing 10.92 yards per return and 105th in kickoff return defense allowing 22.83 yards per return. This may play into Kentucky's favor.

The Wildcats have one of the better kickoff return specialists in the nation in Barion Brown, who doubles as Kentucky's leading receiver with 20 catches for 258 yards and a touchdown.

Brown has returned six kickoffs for an average of 33 yards per return and a touchdown. He also averages 17 yards per punt return and is a big proponent behind the Wildcats' seventh-ranked kick return unit and 35th-ranked punt return unit.

"Brown is a tremendous player that gives them that vertical threat and the horizontal speed too, that creates issues," Drinkwitz said. “So, we're going to have to really be good on the defensive side of the ball.

“I mean, he was freshman All-SEC last year and Luther Burden wasn’t, so it has to mean something. He’s pretty special.”

Kentucky's kicker, Alex Raynor, has made all six field goal attempts and is also 24-of-25 on PATs.

Kentucky is 100th in punting at 36.62 yards per punt but is 24th in punt return defense at 2.8 yards per return, so there will likely be little room for an opportunity for Luther Burden III to try and take one back to the house.

The Wildcats are 79th in kickoff return defense allowing 20.4 yards per return, but again, Missouri isn't great at kick returns and would be better off waving off the return and getting the ball at the 25-yard line.

Penalties have been a problem for the Tigers all season. The Tigers are 111th in penalties per game at 7.5 and already have 45 penalties for 325 yards, which ranks 116th in the FBS.

Along with a botched punt and two turnovers resulting in 14 points, penalties were a major part of the team's loss last week.

The Tigers were called for a season-high 11 penalties, including an illegal snap on third and one from LSU's 41-yard line. That would move put Mizzou in a third and six, and on that play, Brady Cook would be stripped sack and the Tigers lost tons of yards resulting in a fourth and forever once they recovered the ball, and it basically sealed the win for the Bayou Bengals.

"Cadence is all about everybody getting off at the same time. And when we got one person jumping or not jumping, there's not a trust in what they're hearing," Drinkwitz said. "And so from the quarterback perspective, and from us, we have to figure that out. We go on the clap. And so, we have to do a better job of understanding when the clap could occur within the sequence of the cadence and that's something that we're working on."

So far this season, Missouri has committed seven penalties or more in four of its six games with the team's lowest output being five penalties versus Middle Tennessee State.

"Yeah, I think that's been made aware to our team and a focus for our team starting yesterday (Monday), but we got to emphasize it today. And we got a couple of plans in place in order to do that, to reduce penalties," Drinkwitz said.

"We have way too many penalties, pre-snap on the offensive side of the ball, and that's got to get taken off the tape, and then we got too many unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on the defensive side of the ball. Both of those have to either be taken off the tape, or the players got to come out of the game because the team comes first."

Kentucky is 84th in penalties at 6.67 penalties per game and has committed 40 penalties for 357 yards, which ranks 91st in the country.

So, the Wildcats have committed five fewer penalties than the Tigers on the season, but theirs have added up to 32 more yards.

In three games, the Wildcats have committed five penalties or less, and in their other three games, they have committed seven or more penalties, with them committing 10 penalties in two of those games.

As the Tigers learned last week, the self-inflicted wounds will catch up to them. Both teams are prone to making quite a lot of undisciplined mistakes, so whoever can limit the penalties along with controlling the ground game and special teams will likely be in the driver's seat to move to 6-1 on Saturday.

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