- To maintain its successful formula, Kentucky may need to schedule more winnable nonconference games against other Power Four opponents.
- While fans may want the rivalry to continue, the program’s best interest might be to drop the emotionally charged game for a more favorable one.
Kentucky football can no longer afford to play Louisville every year.
The SEC announced its new nine-game schedule for the next four seasons Tuesday night. That extra conference game essentially destroys the formula coach Mark Stoops has successfully used throughout his tenure and was largely responsible for his run of eight consecutive bowl games.
Stoops has predominantly played Mid-American Conference and Football Championship Subdivision schools sprinkled with a program from a Group of Five conference. The Wildcats could depend on those three nonconference wins annually. Three wins is halfway to bowl eligibility, but it’s also allowed UK to ease into its SEC schedule with confidence in most years.
During Stoops’ tenure, the Cats are 31-2 against those opponents, with losses coming in his first season in 2013 against Western Kentucky and in 2016 against Southern Miss.
The annual game with Louisville is a toss-up most years, with the Cats and Cards winning their share of the matchup. The overall series favors UK 19-16, and Stoops is 6-5 against U of L. That’s not a dominant-enough winning percentage to keep playing every year.
Scheduling a more winnable game becomes way more important than the Governor’s Cup with that ninth SEC game now permanently on the schedule. The Cats can’t afford a toss-up game in nonconference play.
The SEC paved the way to allow schools like UK to play its traditional rival. The league now is requiring its schools to play one nonconference game against a Power Four conference opponent every year.
It was purposely done in part to allow Florida to keep its game with Florida State, South Carolina to keep its game with Clemson and Georgia to keep playing Georgia Tech.
That may be fine for those SEC schools, but Kentucky needs to be able to schedule a Power Four opponent where winning is hedged in its favor. There are plenty that fit that description including Wake Forest, Rutgers, Purdue, Maryland, Cincinnati and West Virginia.
That’s not saying UK would go undefeated against those schools. They’ll lose some. They’ll win, too.
But what they won’t have if they drop U of L from the schedule is an emotionally charged game that can single-handedly determine in the eyes of those watching in the commonwealth whether a season was successful. A nondescript Power Four school like Northwestern or N.C. State would never have the UK game circled on its calendar.
It may not be what the fans want, but it is what the Cats need as a program.
It’s not exactly news that UK has historically been stuck in the lower tier of the SEC. It only has an all-time series winning record against Mississippi State (26-25), Vanderbilt (48-44-4), Arkansas (5-3) and Missouri (8-5).
Stoops also has a winning record against four SEC foes: South Carolina (7-5), Vandy (8-4), Arkansas (1-0) and Missouri (7-4). He’s a combined 3-33 against Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee.
The Cats’ success in the 16-team league in any given year is largely beholden to playing the right schedule. That’s why the right schedule may not ever include adding Louisville in nonconference play.
The only opening the Cats could try would be to slide the U of L game in an every-other-year scenario when they also have five home conference games.
Their SEC schedule for 2027 features home games against annual opponents South Carolina and Tennessee, and rotating opponents Auburn, Georgia and Mississippi State. And in 2029 those rotating opponents will mean Arkansas, Ole Miss and Texas visit Kroger Field.
The 2026 and 2028 rotation of Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Missouri and Vandy appears to be too tough without having to face the Cards, too.
The SEC largely presented UK with a balanced schedule. In scanning the next four years, if there’s an obvious weakness where the Cats have it easy, I can’t see it.
Kentucky’s best interest no longer has room for Louisville.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.