What Kentucky football’s win at Florida means for SEC East race, rest of 2022 season
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Game day: No. 20 Kentucky 26, No. 12 Florida 16
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Florida football game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla.
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Kentucky football moved to 2-0 on the 2022 season with a 26-16 win at Florida on Saturday. The win was UK’s first in a regular season matchup of ranked teams since 2007. Since snapping the 31-game losing streak to Florida in 2018, the Wildcats have won three of the last five games in the series.
Here is a closer look at what the SEC-opening win means beyond the scoreboard.
AN EARLY ADVANTAGE IN THE SEC EAST RACE
Nothing about the first two weeks of the season has changed the perception that Georgia retains a significant advantage over the rest of the SEC East Division, but entering the year there was a case to be made for as many as four teams to rank second in the division behind the defending national champion.
Reporters picked Kentucky to finish second in the division in July, but Florida leapfrogged the Wildcats in the Associated Press Top 25 after its season-opening upset of Utah. With the win in Gainesville, Kentucky has earned the early advantage in the race to be Georgia’s biggest challenger.
Difficult games still lie ahead. Of Kentucky’s three remaining games against ranked teams, two are on the road. The third is at home against No. 2 Georgia.
Tennessee, which earned a ranked win at Pittsburgh on Saturday, now looks like the Wildcats’ biggest competitor for second in the SEC East pecking order, but South Carolina and Florida could also still factor in the race. And why does second place matter if the goal is to win the division?
If two SEC teams reach the College Football Playoff (likely Alabama and Georgia), the next-highest ranked SEC team in the final CFP ranking would go to the Sugar Bowl. That spot could go to a team from the West Division, but if Texas A&M, Arkansas and Ole Miss all take multiple losses in the harder division, the No. 2 East team could slip ahead of them in the poll. Potential New Year’s Six bowl spots are also available for SEC teams in the Orange and Cotton bowls if they are ranked high enough.
ONE OF THE BEST WINS OF THE MARK STOOPS ERA
Kentucky’s streak-snapping win in Gainesville in 2018 remains the biggest win of Stoops’ tenure as UK coach, but Saturday’s victory has to be considered among his best yet.
Since Kentucky has been ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 so rarely over the last 40 years, Saturday’s contest was just the ninth regular season meeting between ranked teams for UK since 1978. Kentucky had not won one of those games since the 2007 upset of No. 1 LSU. Stoops was 0-3 in regular-season ranked matchups during his tenure.
It should be noted that Kentucky won bowl games to finish the 2018 and 2021 seasons in which both teams were ranked, but the most-hyped SEC games during the Stoops era had generally finished with UK losses before Saturday.
With the win, Kentucky has beaten a ranked team in three consecutive seasons. As of now, three more opportunities against ranked teams (Ole Miss, Tennessee and Georgia) remain.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF STREAK
For the first time since 1976 and 1977, Kentucky has won consecutive games against Florida.
UK’s 31-game losing streak to Florida from 1987 to 2017 is tied for the fifth-longest losing streak in one series in college football history. An entire generation of Kentucky fans had never seen the Wildcats beat the Gators before the 2018 win.
Now, Kentucky has won three of the last five games in the series. The Gators were ranked in the top 25 at the time of each of those three wins.
Florida will always have certain advantages over Kentucky with one of the most fertile recruiting territories in its home state and the kind of historic success that still holds relevance. New coach Billy Napier has the track record to suggest he can bring the Gators back to national prominence.
But as of today, there is no reason to view Kentucky as a significantly worse program than Florida. Stoops and company have put talk of the streak to bed for good.
This story was originally published September 10, 2022 at 10:35 PM.
