The Kentucky football team will only play Southeastern Conference teams in 2020
The University of Kentucky’s football schedule this fall will consist solely of games against Southeastern Conference opponents.
League teams will play a 10-game schedule consisting only of conference opponents, and the SEC championship game is now set for Dec. 19, the league announced Thursday.
The SEC presidents approved a new kickoff date: Sept. 26. Each team will have a mid-season open date and an open date on Dec. 12, the week prior to the SEC title game.
No particulars have been reported about revised league schedules or the additional SEC opponents whom teams will play in 2020. The ACC’s new schedule announced Wednesday did not include some matchups that were previously scheduled for 2020. The SEC said a revised schedule will be announced at a later date.
“After careful consideration of the public health indicators in our region and following advice of our medical advisors, we have determined that this is the best course of action to prepare for a safe and healthy return to competition for SEC student-athletes, coaches and others associated with our sports programs,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a news release. “The decision to limit competition to conference-only opponents and rescheduling the SEC championship game is based on the need for maximum flexibility in making any necessary scheduling adjustments while reacting to developments around the pandemic and continued advice from medical professionals.
“We believe these schedule adjustments offer the best opportunity to complete a full season by giving us the ability to adapt to the fluid nature of the virus and the flexibility to adjust schedules as necessary if disruptions occur. It is regrettable that some of our traditional non-conference rivalries cannot take place in 2020 under this plan, but these are unique, and hopefully temporary, circumstances that call for unconventional measures.”
The decision came a few weeks after the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences this month opted for conference-only schedules for all sports in the fall. The Atlantic Coast Conference on Wednesday announced that its schools will play 10 conference football games and one game against a non-conference opponent; it shared the revised conference schedules for each team but listed the non-conference opponents as “TBA.”
The ACC’s decision was viewed as a concession to SEC teams with in-state rivals whom they play annually. For Kentucky, the SEC’s decision results in the loss of four previously scheduled games against non-conference opponents, including its annual tilt against in-state rival Louisville. That contest, which was to be held at U of L’s Cardinal Stadium on Nov. 28, was UK’s final regular-season game.
UK and Louisville have played a football game against each other every year since 1994. The schools played only six times prior to that season, the most recent contest before then occurring in 1924.
“I’m glad there is a plan in place so we can move forward with preparations for the season,” UK head coach Mark Stoops said in a statement released by the university. ‘I understand and support the decision to begin on September 26. Everyone would like to play a full schedule, including our rivalry game with Louisville, but this timing and format gives us our best opportunity to adjust to these unique circumstances.”
Before the league’s announcement, UK was set to play eight games — four at home, four on the road — against SEC opponents. Those games, as previously scheduled, were: at Florida (Sept. 12), vs. South Carolina (Sept. 26), at Auburn (Oct. 3), vs. Vanderbilt (Oct. 17), at Missouri (Oct. 24), at Tennessee (Nov. 7), vs. Mississippi State (Nov. 14) and vs. Georgia (Nov. 21).
Erased from UK’s 2020 schedule are its season opener against Eastern Michigan (Sept. 3), a home game against Kent State (Sept. 19) and a home game against Eastern Illinois (Oct. 10). EMU and Kent State are members of the Mid-American Conference, one of five conferences referred to as being in the “Group of Five,” while Eastern Illinois is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference, which is part of the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
A 10-game schedule will be UK’s lightest since 1969, when it went 2-8 against a schedule consisting of seven SEC teams and three others that were or eventually became members of major conferences (Indiana, Virginia Tech and West Virginia). Kentucky only seven times during that stretch finished with a winning record (1953 under Bear Bryant; 1954-1956, 1958 and 1960 under Blanton Collier; and 1965 under Charley Bradshaw).
Kentucky did not finish with a winning record in 1964, Bradshaw’s third season at the helm, but it attained its second-highest Associated Press in-season ranking — No. 5 — during that year, in which it finished 5-5. The Cats started 3-0 that season, including wins over No. 1 Mississippi in Jackson, Miss., — 27-21 — and No. 7 Auburn (20-0) but lost four straight games before finishing 2-for-3 in November.
UK played 10 games each year from 1953-1969. It’s lightest schedule before that stretch was in 1944, when it played nine games following a 1943 season in which it did not field a team due to World War II.
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 4:17 PM.
