Thoughts of the Day: Any football loss to Kentucky is aggravating

A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:

(9.10.22) UF 16 - UK 26 - Credit Chris Spears

The Kentucky Wildcats (4-0, 1-0 SEC) are a very good football team, no question about it, but let’s not go overboard with the praise. It’s not like the 22nd-ranked Florida Gators (3-1, 1-0 SEC) are Saturday playing a team destined for Atlanta. In fact, the Wildcats are more likely on track for another visit to their winter home, the Music City Bowl in Nashville. It isn’t fair to call the Wildcats overrated since we’re just 1/3 of the way through the 2023 season, but take a look at Kentucky’s four wins: Ball State (1-3) of the Mighty MAC, D1AA Eastern Kentucky (1-3), Akron of the Mighty Mac (1-3) and everybody’s favorite Southeastern Conference homecoming opponent, Vanderbilt (2-3). Of the five wins so far by Kentucky’s four opponents, four have come against D1AA teams.

That’s not exactly murderer’s row. To call it a weak schedule would be an insult to Georgia, but do understand this basic concept. Kentucky historically plays a weak non-conference schedule because three wins against cupcakes get the Wildcats halfway to bowl eligibility. That’s a big deal at UK where they began playing college football in 1881 and have been to exactly 21 bowl games in school history. A better way to describe it, Kentucky measures success in the football equivalent of dog years. One human year is six dog years. One Kentucky bowl year is like seven (do the math) everywhere else.

Kentucky isn’t going to Atlanta this year and donkeys may fly before they ever make it to the SEC Championship Game, much less the College Football Playoff. If the Wildcats can break even by winning four of their eight remaining games, they probably will get a bowl game in Florida. What a concept. While fans take a breather from Kentucky’s non-conference basketball schedule to contemplate a run at what could be a 50th SEC hoops championship, they could get a few days in Florida where it’s sure to be warmer and sunnier than Lexington.

Kentucky has won two SEC titles in football, the first way back in 1950 when Bear Bryant was the coach. Three years later they foolishly ran him off. It took nearly 60 years for Mark Stoops to surpass Bryant’s 60 wins to become the winningest coach in school history. There was a second SEC title in 1976 but that one is tainted because then head coach Fran Curci never met a recruiting rule he couldn’t break. The long arm of the NCAA law slapped the Wildcats silly for that one. There are no national championships in football although the 1950 team would have won one except the Associated Press voted for the national championship BEFORE the bowl games in those days. Kentucky lost one game that year but did beat national champ Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.

They are learning to appreciate football at Kentucky but any blueblood UK fan would be lying to say there will ever be a day when football is more important than basketball, which has won 49 SEC and eight NCAA basketball titles. Football’s chief importance is the money it helps the SEC bring in through its media contract. While basketball is indeed a revenue sport at Kentucky, football is the sport that pays for all the other sports thanks to the SEC.

Kentucky doesn’t prioritize football in the same way they do at Florida, Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Tennessee, Auburn and every other SEC school not named Vanderbilt, which is why losing a football game to the Wildcats is so aggravating. It’s one thing to lose a game to a football school that understands this is the south where football ranks just behind the Baptists as the region’s most important religion. It is irritating to the core of every serious football fan to hear midnight madness tickets being scalped at halftime of a September or early October football game.

Saturday, the Gators need to play aggravated from start to finish because they’ve taken their foot off the Kentucky football larynx and allowed the Wildcats to breathe in recent years. This will be the 74th game in the series in which Florida holds a 53-20 lead, 22-11 in Lexington. What was once a death and taxes game for the Wildcats – like death and taxes they knew they would lose to the Gators – is now one in which Kentucky thinks it has Florida’s number. From 1978-2017 the Gators won 31 consecutive games against the Wildcats. It wasn’t until 2018 in Dan Mullen’s first year on the Florida job that the Wildcats broke the streak by knocking off the Gators, 27-16, in, of all places, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

The Gators won in Lexington in 2019, a game that will always be remembered as the night Kyle Trask made us all wonder what the hell had been going on in Dan Mullen’s head to start Feleipe Franks at QB. When Franks went down with a broken and dislocated ankle in the fourth quarter, the Gators were well on their way to a second straight loss to the Wildcats. Trask led the Gators to 19 consecutive points and went on to lead the Gators to an 11-2 record. Trask carved up the Wildcats for a 34-10 win during the COVID year of 2020.

Since then, it’s been all Kentucky. The Wildcats beat the Gators 20-13 in 2021 and last year they left The Swamp with a 26-16 win.

Losing to Kentucky is not something that is supposed to happen, at least not in football. Whenever it happens it is an embarrassment because Florida always has the upper hand when it comes to recruiting football players. None of the three Kentucky teams that has beaten the Gators since 2018 did it with superior personnel. In 2018, the Gators lost because Franks had a miserable night throwing the ball and the Florida defense obviously never got the bulletin that they were allowed to tackle Benny Snell (175 of Kentucky’s 303 rushing yards). In 2021, Todd Grantham’s defense did show up, holding Kentucky to 224 total yards, but the undisciplined Gators committed 15 penalties to derail any chance of winning. A week after playing so brilliantly in the season-opening win over Utah last year, Anthony Richardson had one of those games to forget. On a rare night when the Florida defense showed up, the UF offense didn’t and the Gators lost by 10.

That brings us to Saturday. Once 4-point underdogs, the line has dipped all the way down to a point as of Tuesday night. So, it’s pick’em in the eyes of the oddsmakers in Las Vegas. This is a game the Gators could and should win as long as they remember to leave the silliness at the hotel. The Gators could have and should have beaten Utah in game one if they hadn’t given it away with self-inflicted wounds. If the Gators don’t beat themselves Saturday afternoon, they should leave Lexington with their first 4-game winning streak since 2020. Until then, however, the talking heads can be expected to pat Mark Stoops on the back so many times he will require a dermatologist to shave down the callous. Now, Mark Stoops is a very good football coach. He’s taken the Wildcats to seven straight bowl games and a 51-29 record since 2017. They erect statues of football coaches who go 51-29 at Kentucky outside Commonwealth Stadium. At Florida, 51-29 over a seven-year stretch sends you off somewhere to spend millions of buyout dollars.

Many of those same talking heads will describe Saturday’s game as a must win for Florida coach Billy Napier, but it isn’t. He’s not on the hotseat and he’s going to be coaching here longer than any of his three predecessors – Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Mullen. Napier is putting in a firm foundation and he does indeed know how to recruit.

Two weeks ago, Napier outcoached Josh Heupel and the Gators outplayed Tennessee to stick a sock in the mouth of some of the critics. Billy knows how aggravating it would be to lose to Kentucky. The Florida team knows it as well and they should show up at Commonwealth Stadium laser-focused and ready to win.

The only aggravation in Lexington Saturday will be Florida taking out two years worth on the Wildcats.

SEC football

No. 12 Alabama (3-1, 1-0 SEC): Dallas Turner was named Chuck Bednarik National Defensive Player of the Week for his performance against Ole Miss in which he had two sacks, 3.5 tackles for loss, a forced fumble and two quarterback hurries.

Arkansas (2-2, 0-1 SEC): Running back Rocket Sanders remains day-to-day for Saturday’s game against Texas A&M.

Auburn (3-1, 0-1 SEC): Asked if Payton Thorne will start at QB against Georgia, HBC Hugh Freeze replied, “We’re still wading through that but that’s probably where we’ll land this week.”

No. 1 Georgia (4-0, 1-0 SEC): Georgia is surprisingly just a 14.5-point favorite on the road at Auburn on Saturday.

Kentucky (4-0, 1-0 SEC): DB Maxwell Hairston was named Bronko Nagurski Award National Defensive Player of the Week after two pick-sixes against Akron.

No. 13 LSU (3-1, 2-0 SEC): Tight end Mason Taylor (ankle), edge rusher Ovie Oghoufu (ankle) and linebacker Omar Speights (hip flexor) are all listed probable for Saturday’s game at Ole Miss.

Mississippi State (2-2, 0-2 SEC): When first year offensive coordinator Kevin Barbay moved from the sideline to the booth last week, the Bulldogs scored 31 points and gained 519 yards against South Carolina. Barbay will be in the booth again this week against Alabama.

No. 23 Missouri (4-0, 0-0 SEC): Despite winning the last two games, Missouri is only 3-21 on third down conversions including 0-8 last week against Memphis.

No. 20 Ole Miss (3-1, 0-1 SEC): Tight end Michael Trigg, a 5-star Southern Cal recruit who transferred to Ole Miss, is no longer with the team.

South Carolina (3-1, 1-1 SEC): New coordinator Dowell Loggains may have juiced up the passing game (340 yards per game) but the Gamecocks rank dead last in the SEC in rushing at 75.75 yards per game.

No. 19 Tennessee (3-1, 0-1 SEC): D-line coach Rodney Garner says freshman Daevin Hobbs reminds him of former All-American and All-Pro Richard Seymour, who Garner coached at Georgia.

Texas A&M (3-1, 1-0 SEC): Conner Weigman remains day-to-day leading to speculation that Max Johnson will get the start at QB against Arkansas Saturday.

Vanderbilt (2-3, 0-1 SEC): HBC Clark Lea says the status of injured QB AJ Swann is “to be determined” as the Commodores prep for Saturday’s matchup with Missouri. Swann’s injury is being called an arm strain.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick are meeting in Rosemont, Illinois today to discuss what’s ahead for the College Football Playoff. The playoff goes from four to six teams in 2024 with an already approved 6+6 format – the six highest ranked conference champs plus six at-large. With the demise of the Pac-12, the power conferences would prefer a 5+7 format which would still guarantee at least one Group of Five champ. The Group of Five plans to fight back and they do have clout since any format change has to be unanimously approved.

It's not just the Group of Five holding a wild card, however. There is that matter of the Pac-2, the orphans from the 10-team departures from the Pac-12. Oregon State and Washington State may have legal precedent and by-laws on their side in their lawsuit to hold onto the Pac-12 name, its assets and CFP payouts as well as Power Five membership for at least two more years, at which time they could instigate a merger with the Mountain West or selectively poach the MWC. So, what happens if the CFP goes to a 5+7 minus the Pac-12, then in two years the Pac-12 re-emerges, a viable league that maintains its Power Five status?

By all means, stay tuned, because this is probably going to get quite juicy!