Kentucky avoids slip-up at Vanderbilt and is almost bowl eligible. What’s next?
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Game day: Kentucky at Vanderbilt
Click below to view more of Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s 38-14 University of Kentucky football victory over Vanderbilt at Nashville, Tenn.
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Kentucky’s 38-14 victory over Vanderbilt was its fourth straight over the Commodores, and brought its final record in the Southeastern Conference to 3-5 in 2019.
Here’s a look at the further significance of Saturday’s win beyond the scoreboard.
Bowl ‘guaranteed’
UK picked up its fifth win of the season, meaning it needs one more to officially gain bowl eligibility, but that is all but assured as of Saturday. *knock on wood*
Kentucky’s penultimate game is against Tennessee Martin, a member of the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision. Teams in that level of play have only 63 full scholarships to award, compared to the 85 that Football Bowl Subdivision teams can hand out. Additionally, FCS teams often choose to divvy up most of their scholarships into partial awards to help piece together their rosters.
UT Martin coming into Saturday was 6-4 overall and sat third in the standings with a 5-2 record in the Ohio Valley Conference. UK has never lost to an FCS opponent but did tie once with Cincinnati, 13-13, in 1983 when it was a Division I-AA school. A missed extra point cost the Cats their sixth straight victory.
Kentucky also needed overtime to upend Eastern Kentucky, a member of the OVC, 34-27 in 2017.
SEC standing
Kentucky finished with three SEC wins for the fourth consecutive year.
Yeah, it failed to deliver a third straight record of .500 or better. But three conference wins, in the wider context of UK football history, remains a fairly significant achievement.
It was the 12th time since the conference split into two divisions in 1992 that Kentucky won at least three SEC games. Before that split, the Cats managed that feat only 18 times from 1933-1991.
What might have been
Mark Stoops-coached units are now responsible for one-third of Kentucky’s most successful SEC seasons in the divisional era. Two tight losses kept it from being, arguably, the best.
UK’s 29-22 loss to Florida in September and its 17-13 defeat last week against Tennessee both might have finished in favor of Kentucky had they not failed, in both, to convert in short-yardage situations in the fourth quarter. In both instances they had two goes at it, as well, making it sting so much more.
Kentucky in 2018 finished with a 5-3 record, its first winning record in the league since 1977. Last year’s gauntlet featured a streak-snapping win over Florida but a stinker of a loss against Tennessee. Had UK managed to defeat both this year, it would have been the first time it achieved that since 1977.
Last year’s Cats defeated Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Missouri and Vanderbilt. Top to bottom, that slate was probably better overall than the hypothetical five SEC wins Kentucky might have come away with this season, but besting the Gators and Volunteers both as part of that slate would have made it quite memorable.
Embarrassment evaded
Vanderbilt this season is one of the worst offensive teams in the country. If a Kentucky defense that has held opponents to 20.8 points per game had suddenly turned into a sieve against these Commodores, it would have been a terrible look. The only bad outcome Saturday would have been a loss.
Photo finish?
With a probable win over UT Martin up next, Kentucky could end its season on a three-game win streak if it can topple Louisville at home two days after Thanksgiving. Given the circumstances surrounding the quarterback position this season, it’d be hard to gripe too much if that eventually is the outcome.
This story was originally published November 16, 2019 at 6:57 PM.
