Kentucky football is bowl eligible for seventh straight year after beating Missouri
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Game day: Kentucky 21, Missouri 17
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Missouri football game at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
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Kentucky football moved to 6-3 on the 2022 season with a 21-17 win at Missouri on Saturday. Here is a closer look at what the win means beyond the scoreboard.
WILDCATS ARE BOWL ELIGIBLE AGAIN
Gone are the days where simply reaching six wins was enough to consider a season a success for Kentucky, but keeping the bowl streak alive is still a point of pride for the program.
With Saturday’s victory, UK is bowl eligible for the seventh consecutive season (including the pandemic-altered 2020 season in which all teams were declared bowl eligible regardless of record). Mark Stoops’ team has won its last four bowl games.
There is still a wide range of possibilities for Kentucky’s bowl destination depending on the results of the final three regular season games. The most likely scenario places UK in the SEC’s “Pool of Six” bowl tier, which includes the ReliaQuest, Gator, Music City, Texas, Las Vegas and Liberty bowls.
Two more wins might be needed to feel confident about the chances of playing in the ReliaQuest Bowl (formerly known as the Outback Bowl), which is likely Kentucky’s top target due to its status as a Florida bowl traditionally played on New Year’s Day. Kentucky will likely try to avoid the Music City Bowl since it kicks off at the same time as the Kentucky-Louisville men’s basketball rivalry game on New Year’s Eve. The SEC is unlikely to send the Wildcats to the Gator Bowl since they played there just two years ago.
Since a West Division team is usually sent to the Texas Bowl, the Las Vegas Bowl might be the top option if Kentucky falls short of the ReliaQuest Bowl. Of course, an upset of No. 1 Georgia in two weeks could change the conversation dramatically.
RESETTING THE NARRATIVE
There were legitimate reasons to worry Kentucky’s season might spiral out of control after the 44-6 loss at Tennessee.
Kentucky had lost three of four games entering the Missouri matchup. Already once this season, Stoops’ squad had let one loss spiral into two when it followed a close defeat at Ole Miss with a lackluster showing without quarterback Will Levis a week later against South Carolina. Plus, Missouri brought a top-25 defense to the game that looked more than capable of shutting down Kentucky’s struggling offense.
Leaving Columbia with a win does not completely erase the bad taste of the Tennessee game and it’s not like the performance was dominant, but it does at least stop the bleeding.
Now, Kentucky returns home for three final regular season games. It should be a clear favorite next week against last-place Vanderbilt. It will be a substantial underdog on Nov. 19 against Georgia, but even with a loss there the Wildcats will have a chance to end the regular season on a high note in the Governor’s Cup rivalry game versus Louisville.
While Kentucky fell short of its stated goal of winning the SEC East, winning three of the final four would still give the program eight regular season wins for just the fourth time since 1977.
MISSOURI SUCCESS CONTINUES
With the victory, Kentucky has now won seven of its last eight games against Missouri.
While the results have been one-sided, most of those games have been close. Missouri players were clearly motivated to make a statement against Kentucky.
Instead, one week after Tennessee proved it had passed Kentucky in the SEC East pecking order again, the Wildcats were able to prove they are not quite ready to slide back into the pack. Kentucky has now won seven of eight against Missouri and three of five against Florida. It brings a six-game winning streak against Vanderbilt into next week’s matchup. South Carolina did beat Kentucky for just the second time in nine games earlier this season, but that result can at least partially be explained by Levis not being available.
Georgia and Tennessee are the top two teams in the country. The gap between that duo and the rest of the division is substantial, but Kentucky made a case Saturday that it belongs in its own tier before those two and the rest of the East.
This story was originally published November 5, 2022 at 3:43 PM.
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