Everything you need to know about Georgia’s first conference game against Kentucky.

The Georgia Bulldogs are getting their conference schedule kicked off this weekend against the Kentucky Wildcats in Lexington. Kentucky lost their conference opener against South Carolina in a tough fashion by a final score of 31-6. The Bulldogs are heavy favorites coming into this one but rain is expected to be in the area during the football game which might impact the football game. With that being said, here is everything you need to know from a statistical standpoint about the matchup.

Kirby Smart has an 8-0 record vs Kentucky. In those games, Georgia is averaging 29.3 points per game, allowing an average of 11.1 points per game and has won those games by an average margin of 18.2 points. Kentucky has scored more than 20 points just once in the matchup (2016) and has been held under 10 three times.

Kentucky was held under 10 points for the 11th time since 2016 against South Carolina this past weekend. It was the first time the Wildcats had been held under 200 yards of total offense since Georgia in 2023. The Bulldogs held both Clemson and Tennessee Tech under 200 yards of total offense this season.

Quarterback Carson Beck has been on a roll this season and is coming off of a five-touchdown performance against Tennessee Tech. Beck is one of two quarterbacks in the country to have at leat seven touchdowns and a completion percentage of 70 or more. He has thrown for 520 yards, 7 TDs, 0 INTs and has a completion rate of 70.7%. LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier is the other quarterback.

Georgia is currently averaging 7.81 yards per play which ranks 12th in the country. They are also averaging 472.5 yards per game. Kentucky is averaging 4.76 yards per play and just 250 yards per game on offense. Georgia ranks 5th in the country for total defense with an average of 161 yards allowed per game. They are allowing an average of 80 passing yards per game and 81 rushing yards per game. Kentucky ranks 8th for total defense with an average of 191.5 yards allowed per game. They are allowing an average of 149 passing yards and 45 rushing yards per game.

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The search for the suspect in last weekend’s Kentucky highway shooting has taken authorities into a massive, dense forest that’s been compared to a jungle in the southeastern part of the state. The manhunt for Joseph Couch, 32, has been going on since Saturday, when authorities say he shot and wounded five people who were traveling on Interstate 75.

The shooting happened near London, Kentucky, a city of about 8,000 outside Daniel Boone National Forest, which has “some of the most rugged terrain west of the Appalachian Mountains,” according to the U.S. Forest Service. The terrain includes “steep forested slopes, sandstone cliffs and narrow ravines,” according to the agency.

“It is like a jungle,” Kentucky State Police Master Trooper Scottie Pennington told reporters Monday, “and we have cliff beds, we have sinkholes, we have caves, we had culverts that go under the interstate. We have creeks and rivers and the dense brush. I mean, it’s not something I can just take my dog for a natural walk through.”

The forest spans more than 2.1 million acres, including state and privately owned land, according to the Forest Service. The agency manages over 707,000 acres of the area and Pennington said it’s been assisting with the search.

In addition to the Forest Service, multiple law enforcement agencies are also helping with the search effort, including the FBI, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, local police forces, sheriff’s departments and the U.S. Marshals Service, Pennington said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has also provided boats to navigate rivers in the forest.

Pennington posted a video to social media Tuesday showing the dense brush that search teams are combing through with the help of dogs.

He noted that while investigators are looking for the suspect, they’re also gathering anything he may have left behind.

“Our ground teams, you know, they’re like snails, they’re going very slowly to make sure they don’t leave anything unturned,” he said. “It might be a tree that’s knocked over, and it doesn’t look right the way it’s knocked over or something, a piece of trash on the ground, a candy bar wrapper, anything like that. I mean, we have to collect those because that might be part of the evidence.”

Meanwhile, helicopters and drones have been searching from the air, with the helicopters able to track heat sources on the ground.

As difficult as the area has been to search, Pennington said he hopes a lack of resources in the forest helps drive the suspect out of hiding.

“I hope he doesn’t have water, I hope he doesn’t have food, and I hope he’s just, he’s wore out, and eventually he’ll walk out of them woods,” he said.

Authorities are also looking for signs that the suspect may have died in the forest, like buzzards circling overhead.

“We’re going to stay in the woods till we find him, and, you know, that’s our job,” Pennington said. “If he’s dead or alive, it’s our job to try to find him, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

The search for a man accused of injuring five people when he opened fire on a Kentucky highway has stretched into its fifth day as authorities scour a “jungle”-like forest terrain.

The suspect, identified as 32-year-old Joseph Couch, shot at vehicles that were traveling on Interstate 75 from a cliff near exit 49 on Saturday evening, authorities said. Sheriff’s deputies responded to calls at about 5:30 and found vehicles parked and riddled with bullets. Officials said at least a dozen vehicles were hit. Some of the five injured were in serious condition but all were expected to survive.

Couch planned to “kill a lot of people” and then himself, he said in a text message, according to an arrest affidavit. He had purchased a gun and ammunition hours before. He faces five counts of attempted murder and five counts of first-degree assault, and will likely receive more charges.

Area schools were closed for another day Wednesday and the community of London and Laurel County was still on edge as the search stretched on. Authorities say the Daniel Boone National Forest, near where the shooting unfolded, poses unique challenges to search crews because of its landscape and vastness.

MAP AND TIMELINE: After active shooter opens fire on Kentucky highway, massive manhunt continues

Why is the search taking so long? Daniel Boone National Forest is ‘like a jungle’

Authorities have been scouring the rolling woods near Laurel County for days in search of Couch and other evidence linked to the shooting. The notoriously rugged terrain of the area has compounded the difficulty of finding him, according to law enforcement officials.

“We are in the Daniel Boone National Forest, and this is thousands and thousands of acres,” said Scottie Pennington, public affairs officer for Kentucky State Police, in a Monday news briefing. “It is like a jungle.”

Law enforcement officials have deployed helicopters, drones and dogs to search the area where Couch vanished into the forest, after officials found his car and gun near the scene of the shooting. Cold nights and humid days, paired with a lack of food and water, will hopefully draw him out of the woods to surrender himself to law enforcement, Pennington said.

Cliffs, sinkholes, caves, culverts, creeks and rivers, and dense brush are complicating the manhunt for the Laurel County shooting suspect, Pennington said, along with wildlife that includes venomous snakes.

“The Daniel Boone National Forest embraces some of the most rugged terrain west of the Appalachian Mountains,” according to the U.S. Forest Service, and contains “steep forested slopes, sandstone cliffs and narrow ravines.” 

Daniel Boone National Forest sprawls across more than 700,000 acres and 21 Kentucky counties. Taking a wrong step along wooded ridges or encountering dangerous wildlife adds risk in the region, especially off-trail, where law enforcement officials are now searching.

Daniel Boone National Forest has proven challenging to search teams in the past — even in cases when the missing person wanted to be found. In July, search teams found Scott Hern, 48, alive after he went missing in the forest for two weeks and spent an estimated 12 days without access to food or water, according to search and rescue officials. 

Contributing: John Bacon, Cybele Mayes-Osterman and Minnah Arshad, USA TODAY; The Louisville Courier Journal