Preseason picks dissed Cats and Cards. Look at them now and how their paths compare.
Following Kentucky’s victory over Tennessee Martin, head coach Mark Stoops on Saturday spoke glowingly of the way his 2019 Wildcats this season have handled adversity. He could have just as easily been talking about how the 2019 Louisville Cardinals dug themselves out of the crater they dove into last year.
Neither UK nor its intrastate rival was projected by outsiders to have a particularly good season. Before the year got underway, ESPN’s Football Power Index projected the Cats as a favorite in only five games and the Cards were favored in just three. Clearly, both exceeded those expectations.
“I think it’s good that both teams are in a good position,” Stoops said during his Monday news conference. “That hasn’t always been the case, even with us. We’ve played ’em good at times and not so well at times, and it was about us elevating our program and getting better each and every year. That’s my focus, is our program and getting it better, and I know Coach (Scott) Satterfield is the same way, and he has ‘em playing much better than they did a year ago, that’s for sure. There’s no denying that.”
Kentucky’s return to bowl eligibility would have been impressive considering it lost five marquee defensive backs, its all-time leading rusher and one of the best defensive players to ever suit up in Lexington. It became a remarkable feat when it was achieved despite losing one of its few returning starting defenders to a preseason injury and two starting quarterbacks to injury before the season’s halfway point. Throw in distracting speculation about Stoops’ future whereabouts and you’ve almost got a full-fledged Cinderella story.
Louisville’s one of the few teams in college football that’s arguably written a better tale than the Wildcats this year, though. Despite the challenges it faced before and during this season, UK has recruited at a historic pace and built up enough talent to give itself a solid chance against most foes every Saturday; a less capable roster would have faltered down the stretch instead of embracing a style of play completely different from what it practiced all offseason.
U of L, on the other hand, was abysmal in the last year of Bobby Petrino’s second stint. The Cardinals seven times gave up 50 or more points and finished a 2-10 campaign with their most lopsided loss ever to Kentucky since the schools started playing annually in 1994. Even the most optimistic among the Cards’ faithful couldn’t have expected that year one under Satterfield would look as good as it has with, essentially, the same roster.
C.J. Avery, a junior linebacker who leads Louisville with 77 tackles this season, might have been on to something when asked after last year’s loss to UK what the Cardinals needed in a new head coach.
“A big thing with us is discipline, and we really need to work on that,” Avery said then. “The new coach, whoever it is, he’s going to get us right on that.”
Head to head
Louisville’s overall record (7-4) is a hair better than that of the Wildcats (6-5), but it’s tough to make 1:1 comparisons because their schedules are so different. On one hand, the Atlantic Coast Conference is probably the worst in the Power Five grouping this year; but a 5-3 record against league foes is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you went 0-8 against more or less the same slate in 2018. The Southeastern Conference is the gold standard, but it’s debatable whether any of the three also-rans against whom Kentucky picked up conference wins would have fared much better in another league this year.
The teams’ losses are arguably more revealing: each fell to two top-10 programs — Kentucky to Florida and Georgia, Louisville to Clemson and Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish pulled away after an early struggle to kick off the season while the Tigers trounced the Cards; both games were in Louisville. A number of mistakes led to UK falling by a possession to the Gators at home, and they played the Bulldogs to a scoreless tie before falling 21-0 on a drenched night in Athens.
Perception of Kentucky’s losses at Mississippi State and South Carolina have, without a doubt, worsened since they happened. The Gamecocks won’t play in a bowl and the Bulldogs might miss out, too — the Cats’ best defense is that it didn’t try to relieve Sawyer Smith early enough, but without the bye week to prepare Lynn Bowden at quarterback it might not have mattered much. But it’s the goal-line failure against Tennessee that still stings the most; since Bowden took the reins it’s the only game UK “should have” won that it didn’t.
Both of Louisville’s other defeats happened in the Sunshine State: 35-24 at Florida State and 52-27 at Miami. Those programs, historically, are superior to every other in the ACC but both could finish the regular season with 6-6 records. The more recent of the two, the shellacking at Miami, became more distressing to reflect on for Louisville fans after the Hurricanes lost to Florida International over the weekend.
Winning ways
Louisville is somewhat better defensively than it was a year ago, and much more so when it comes to scoring — the Cards have yielded about 12 fewer points per game this year than last (44.1 to 32.8). But its most marked improvement occurred on offense: U of L last season averaged 19.8 points per game but this year is putting up 34.5 each time out. They’re just barely outscoring their opponents — 379-361 through 11 games — but the improvement between 2018 and 2019 is sizable.
Stoops said Satterfield’s offense is different from what Petrino ran at the school.
“When Coach Petrino was rolling and really doing great offensively, there was also great balance, like there is now within their offense,” Stoops said. “There are some things that are similar but scheme wise, they’re different.”
Much of Kentucky’s expected drop-off was the result of a projected nosedive on defense that didn’t actually happen. UK ranks 18th at 18.9 points allowed per game this year; it allowed two fewer points last season and finished with the No. 6 ranking. So far the Cats have allowed about five fewer total yards per game to their opponents this season compared to last.
That it was able to maintain that distinguished effort matters greatly. UK won 10 games last year with the sport’s 85th ranked scoring offense. It ranks 10 spots lower in that category this year, and lost to teams (South Carolina and Tennessee) that have had a harder time scoring than it has this season. Without a top-20 defense, it’s safe to say Kentucky would be nowhere near bowl eligibility.
“It starts with having an energy about ya and a conviction to get to the football and play tough, and Brad (White) and the assistant coaches have done a really good job of getting them in a good position,” Stoops said. “… They’re taking great pride in the way they’re playing.”
Early outlook
Which feel-good story has a better chance of finishing on a high note: that of the first-year head coach who swiftly revived a program in decline or the determined host who proved that the bedrock beneath its historic season was more sound than outsiders believed?
Jeff Sagarin gives Louisville the slightest of edges — the Cardinals, ranked 47th overall, have a rating of 74.16, while No. 48 Kentucky rates at 74.14. Kentucky opened as a four-point favorite in Las Vegas, and won its only noon kickoff this season, for whatever that’s worth.
A 2-4 record against the Cardinals is one of the blemishes on Stoops’ tenure in Lexington; he’ll be eager to get consecutive wins in the rivalry for the first time. Satterfield has re-lit a fire under Louisville fans; what a feather in his cap it would be to roll into Lexington and knock out the Cats.
“I don’t think there’s any denying, when you’re playing a rivalry game, that it’s important,” Stoops said. “I’ve said that since day one. I understand the importance to our fan base, our community and our state, and our team.”
Kentucky’s prowess in the run game could be the biggest on-field factor: Despite its overall inability to generate yards, UK ranks 12th in the nation with 252.2 rushing yards per game. Louisville tends to give up rushing yards; the Cardinals allow 183.2 per game, 88th overall.
ESPN’s FPI likes the Cats, too: it gives them a 69.3% chance of winning on Saturday. Of course, if it were batting a thousand, the Governor’s Cup would have been the last trophy either played for this season. There will be little to unify them this week, but UK and U of L against naysayers found plenty of common ground this year.
Saturday
Louisville at Kentucky
Noon (SEC Network)
