Kentucky just beat another MAC team. Why you should be excited by that.
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Game day: Kentucky vs. Eastern Michigan
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Kentucky’s 38-17 win over Eastern Michigan was its 12th straight victory over a Mid-American Conference school and pushed the Wildcats to a 2-0 start in 2019.
Let’s look at the significance of Saturday’s victory beyond the scoreboard.
Non-conference streak
Kentucky is up to seven straight victories against opponents outside the Southeastern Conference. Last year it swept five non-conference opponents (Central Michigan, Louisville, Middle Tennessee State, Murray State and Penn State) and defeated Toledo last week. The Cats’ last non-conference loss was to Northwestern, 24-23, in the 2017 Music City Bowl.
UK’s record for consecutive non-conference wins swelled to 18 under Rich Brooks, whose teams went unbeaten against outside foes from Sept. 6, 2006 (a victory over Texas State), until Dec. 27, 2009, a loss to Clemson in the Music City Bowl. That streak topped a 17-game stretch of wins that ended in 1960.
Wins over Tennessee-Martin and Louisville later this season would give head coach Mark Stoops the fourth-longest UK streak against non-conference opponents and the second-longest (to Brooks) since UK and U of L began their Governor’s Cup series. Streaks of 14 and eight wins against non-conference foes top UK’s current streak, which has been twice ended at seven wins (in 1990 and 1998).
Ranked matchup?
It’ll take some help from teams above them in the pecking order, but it’s possible that Kentucky could climb into the top 25 of the USA Today/Amway Coaches’ Poll. UK was ranked 29th last week by those voters, who thus far have respected the Cats more than The Associated Press rankings (the program climbed a couple spots despite receiving fewer votes in the second coaches’ poll; it hasn’t received a point through two rounds of media voting).
Should UK move into the top 25, it would be the first time it and Florida play as ranked foes since 2007. Kentucky that season entered their Oct. 20 game against the Gators rated ahead of them in both polls (No. 8 overall by the AP, No. 13 by the coaches; Florida was No. 14 in both). Florida defeated UK in Lexington, 45-37, that season.
Georgia (No. 3 in both polls) and Florida (No. 10 by coaches, No. 11 in AP) were the only SEC East Division teams ranked entering this weekend.
Big boys
If UK insists on continuing to load up its non-conference slate with Group of Five schools — and it is, based on what we know about the next half-decade worth of schedules — then taking care of business against those schools is essential as it continues to curry favor with high school recruits who live near those less-impressionable programs.
Three commits in the 2020 class — five-star lineman Justin Rogers along with three-star prospects Deondre Buford and Earnest Sanders — hail from Michigan. A loss to any “directional school” from the state would likely do more harm than any good a win could possibly deliver, but staying away from the wrong column still carries some weight. The big boys in college football don’t lose to MAC schools, and for UK to budge its way closer to their table, it must continue to handle them with regularity, too.
This story was originally published September 7, 2019 at 11:18 PM.
