Kentucky, Iowa preparing for Citrus Bowl as others are thwarted by COVID-19

Unseasonably warm temperatures should make it easier to keep your wood-knocking hand spry in the march to Saturday, on which the University of Kentucky football team is scheduled to play Iowa in the VRBO Citrus Bowl.

Both teams are already in Orlando, Florida, a city whose seven-day average for COVID-19 cases is about nine times higher than those of Lexington and Iowa City combined, according to data from the New York Times. They conducted their first on-site practices at separate area high schools on Monday. There’s no reason at this point to fear their bout won’t kick off as slated — that they each arrived without any reported problems is a good sign — but if there’s anything we’ve learned in the last two years, it’s that college football games are anything but a certainty.

As of Monday, three postseason bowls — the Hawaii Bowl, Military Bowl and Fenway Bowl — had been canceled due to COVID-19 outbreaks involving at least one of the involved teams. One Southeastern Conference team — Texas A&M — last week pulled out of its postseason commitment due to it not having enough scholarship players available to play against Wake Forest in the Gator Bowl this Friday; the Aggies were replaced by Rutgers, a 5-7 team that previously wasn’t in the postseason. Other bowls on Monday were facing the potential of cancellation or scrambling to shuffle participants in order to stage a game.

(For what it’s worth: Texas A&M’s lack of available players wasn’t just pandemic-induced; two of its top offensive players, tight end Jalen Wydermyer and running back Isaiah Spiller, declared for the NFL Draft and are no longer with the team. Quarterback Zach Calzada entered the transfer portal, and several other players suffered season-ending injuries down the stretch.)

Kentucky is being as careful as it can be. Its players are required to wear masks indoors while in Orlando, which doesn’t have a city-wide mask mandate, and are being socially distant. All of their bowl-related events, which includes a Topgolf outing on Wednesday, are sanctioned off from the public.

UK’s team by late August met the SEC’s vaccination rate threshold of 85 percent, at which point its players would not be subject to regular COVID-19 monitoring unless they presented symptoms; the Big Ten had a similar policy. There were no reported outbreaks throughout UK’s regular season, which was completed prior to the recent spike of cases nationally due to the omicron variant.

Offensive coordinator Liam Coen last week noted that, since its return to practicing for the bowl, the team had been more diligent about masking and distancing while in each other’s midst on campus.

“Our trainers, our athletic department, have done such a nice job of making sure that we’re in a place of safety for our players and for our staff,” Coen said. “ ... It’s tough, man. It’s really disappointing to see (what’s happening around the country) and we’re just hoping that it doesn’t get to us, and we have to take the necessary precautions, almost like going back to some of the stricter policies that we’ve had, unfortunately. It’s just what we have to do right now.”

No players have opted out of the game for Kentucky, but it will be without Josh Ali and Isaiah Epps, its No. 2 and No. 3 receivers throughout the year, after the pair suffered injuries in a car accident in Georgia during UK’s break between the end of the regular season and its bowl preparation. During his most recent availability, defensive end Josh Paschal was coy about whether he’ll be able to play after suffering a leg injury during UK’s win at Louisville, but he was listed as the starter on Kentucky’s newest depth chart.

Outside of those exceptions, the Cats seem to be in good shape from an availability standpoint, with four days left before their final game of the 2021 season. Keep the wood handy.

Decisions

If you’ve mostly tuned out since the end of UK’s regular season, here’s a brief refresher on what you’ve missed regarding the Cats’ current and future roster

Will Levis: Kentucky’s starting quarterback announced last week that he’ll be returning for the 2022 season. The graduate transfer from Penn State put up the best passing numbers (2,593 yards, 23 TDs) of any quarterback who’s played during Mark Stoops’ tenure and projects as one of the top QBs in the SEC next season, and could become a high-round draft pick if he produces at a similar or better level in 2022.

Wan’Dale Robinson: The homegrown product since transferring from Nebraska was expected to only be at UK for one season before declaring for the draft, but so far hasn’t made his intentions known. UK during the early signing period nabbed Virginia Tech transfer Tayvion Robinson, who will help ease the exit of Wan’Dale should he be a one-and-done for the Wildcats.

Portal: Several UK players have officially entered the transfer portal since the regular season ended. Most of them were deep-roster reserves who seldom got on the field in their 2-3 years with the team. They are: linebacker Marquez Bembry; linebacker Jared Casey; running back Torrance Davis; defensive back Moses Douglass; defensive end Isaiah Gibson; linebacker K.D. McDaniel; offensive lineman Jake Pope; quarterback Nik Scalzo; running back Travis Tisdale; and offensive lineman Naasir Watkins.

Notes

▪ The SEC’s contract with the Citrus Bowl called for its team to purchase 4,000 tickets for the game. UK sold out of its allotment and then some; it had to purchase 2,150 additional tickets to cover pre-orders through its website.

Citrus Bowl spokesperson Sam Gardner said that ticket sales for the game were tracking similarly to its most recent pre-pandemic staging of the event in 2020, when an announced crowd of 59,746 watched Alabama beat Michigan. Slightly fewer — 59,167 — watched UK defeat Penn State in 2019.

The 2021 game between Northwestern and Auburn had a reduced-capacity crowd of 15,698.

▪ For those traveling to Orlando: pep rallies for both teams are scheduled for Friday afternoon at Pointe Orlando, an outdoor mall. The head coaches, cheerleaders, bands and mascots will be in attendance. Iowa goes at 4 p.m. with Kentucky to follow at 4:45 p.m.

Saturday

No. 22 Kentucky vs. No. 15 Iowa

What: VRBO Citrus Bowl

When: 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 1

Where: Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.

TV: ABC-36

Records: Kentucky 9-3, Iowa 10-3

Series: First meeting

This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 4:18 PM.

Josh Moore

Lexington Herald-Leader

Josh Moore covers the University of Kentucky football team for the Lexington Herald-Leader, where he’s been employed since 2009. Moore, a Martin County native, graduated from UK with a B.A. in Integrated Strategic Communication and English in 2013. He’s a fan of the NBA, Power Rangers and Pokémon. Support my work with a digital subscription