‘We couldn’t be more excited.’ Kentucky, Virginia Tech renew series in Belk Bowl.
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UK in the 2019 Belk Bowl
The University of Kentucky will play Virginia Tech in the 2019 Belk Bowl on Dec. 31. Read more about the Wildcats’ opponent and destination.
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For the first time in program history, the University of Kentucky football team will play in Charlotte, N.C.
UK, bowl-eligible for the fourth straight season under head coach Mark Stoops, will participate in the Belk Bowl on Dec. 31. The game is scheduled for a noon kickoff and will be broadcast by ESPN.
The official announcement came at 4:30 p.m. via the Belk Bowl’s Twitter account. It is the Wildcats’ 19th bowl appearance in school history.
Kentucky will meet Virginia Tech in the game, which annually pits a team from the Southeastern Conference against one from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“We think it’s a terrific matchup,” Danny Morrison, executive director of the Charlotte Sports Foundation, told the Herald-Leader. “Two teams playing really well at the end of the season. … We couldn’t be more excited.”
At a press conference Sunday night, UK Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart praised the support Kentucky fans have shown in three different cities — Jacksonville, Nashville and Orlando — in the program’s first three bowl trips under Stoops.
Bank of America Stadium, where the game will be played, is about six hours from Lexington. The drive from Virginia Tech’s campus in Blacksburg is a little under three hours.
“People have been accustomed to the kind of crowd our fan base brings,” Barnhart said. “… We’ve been in some really good bowl games and our fans have absolutely supported us, and we’re gonna need that type of support as we go to Charlotte.”
He later lauded fans who braved some of the wet and windy conditions Kentucky faced during its games during the regular season.
“There were some days where I’m not sure I’d have stood out there. They were incredible,” Barnhart said. “I thank every one of them, they were awesome. The last couple games there were some times where it was raining about as hard as I’ve seen it rain in my career.”
The Wildcats (7-5) are coming off their third consecutive victory, a 45-13 decision over rival Louisville in which they set a new single-game rushing record for the second straight week. Kentucky this year has rushed for 3,293 yards, the most by a team in program history.
Lynn Bowden against Louisville rushed for 284 yards, 15 shy of matching the single-game record set by Moe Williams in 1995. It was the most rushing yards by a quarterback in SEC history.
This is the final year the Belk Bowl will be known as such; Belk, a department store chain with its headquarters in Charlotte, announced last month that it would end its sponsorship of the event after nine years.
UK has never played a football game in Charlotte but it has played Charlotte, the only FBS college football program in the city, once. Kentucky won, 58-10, to snap a five-game losing streak in what was then known as Commonwealth Stadium in 2015.
Kentucky is 9-9 all-time in bowl appearances. UK’s first home game at Kroger Field — then known as Commonwealth Stadium — came against Virginia Tech on Sept. 15, 1973. Kentucky defeated the Hokies, 31-26. The Wildcats overall are 11-6-2 in the series, whose last meeting was held in 1987.
A 50-7 win over Tennessee Martin on Nov. 23 made Kentucky bowl-eligible for a fourth consecutive season, only the second time in school history it’s achieved a streak that long. UK made a school-record five bowl trips from 2006-2010.
Stoops is the second coach to lead Kentucky to four postseason bowls, joining Rich Brooks (2006-2009). He is 1-2 as a head coach in bowl games; last season’s 27-24 win over Penn State in the Citrus Bowl was his first victory.
Following UK’s victory over UT Martin, Stoops said this team — which lost starting quarterback Terry Wilson two games into the season and had to install a new offense before reaching the season’s halfway point — has been “very special” to coach. Barnhart echoed that sentiment on Sunday.
“I thought it was a remarkable effort on both fronts, coaches and our young people, what they did to completely reframe how they think,” Barnhart said. “You talk about sacrificial. A lot of people gave up what they do for the good of the team to go be better.
“We hear that talked about an awful lot but very seldom do you see it played out in real time like our team did. Folks gave up positions, folks gave up reps, folks gave up opportunities that may have been best for them, to collectively get to a better spot and go be something very valuable as a team.”
Belk Bowl
When: Noon Tuesday, Dec. 31
Where: Charlotte, N.C.
Records: UK 7-5; Virginia Tech 8-4
TV: ESPN
This story was originally published December 8, 2019 at 4:31 PM.
