Kentucky football’s season opener moved to avoid conflict with the Derby
The University of Kentucky football team will get out of the gate fast, it turns out.
To avoid a conflict with this year’s Kentucky Derby — which was moved to September as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic — UK now will host Eastern Michigan on Sept. 3, the school announced Tuesday. Both of those events previously were scheduled to occur Sept. 5.
No kickoff time has been announced for that game nor any other game on the Wildcats’ 2020 schedule. The season opener will be aired by the SEC Network, and will be the first football game played this season by any member of the Southeastern Conference.
It is the ninth time in the modern era that UK will play a football game on a Thursday, and its first time doing so since it hosted Auburn on Oct. 15, 2015 (a 30-27 loss). Kentucky is 2-6 in its previous eight Thursday games since 1993. It defeated South Carolina on the road that year and opened its 2011 season with a win over Western Kentucky in Nashville. Five of its Thursday losses came on the road: at Auburn (1994), South Carolina (1999, 2003, 2007) and Mississippi State (2013).
UK as of late May had sold a little more than 27,000 season-ticket packages, 81 percent of last year’s final season ticket total. Of that amount, 1,650 were new season ticket-holders.
“We’re so thankful to our fans for the way they continue to support our program even through these challenging times,” UK spokesperson Guy Ramsey told the Herald-Leader last month. “Their response has been incredible and our conversations with them have been uplifting.”
UK won’t be the only team in the commonwealth kicking off its college football season on Sept. 3. Louisville is set to host N.C. State on that date; that decision was made prior to the postponement of the Kentucky Derby. WKU last week announced that it was moving its season opener against UT Chattanooga to Sept. 3.
As of Tuesday, Eastern Kentucky is the only Football Bowl Subdivision school in the state that is scheduled to play on Sept. 5. The Colonels are scheduled to host Western Carolina for a 3 p.m. kickoff on ESPN Plus.
Kentucky alternatively could have played on a Sunday to avoid conflict with the Derby, but it hasn’t done that since 2012.
Only one other SEC game in 2020 is scheduled for a Thursday: the Egg Bowl tilt between Mississippi and Mississippi State, which occurs annually on Thanksgiving Day. The only other non-Saturday game scheduled for 2020 is Sept. 7, when Georgia will play Virginia in Atlanta.
This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 3:38 PM.
