Kentucky football falls just short in heartbreaking overtime loss to Texas
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Gameday: No. 21 Texas 16, Kentucky 13 (OT)
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Texas football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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For most of Saturday night, Kentucky football outplayed the preseason No. 1-ranked team.
But the result ended just as the past 10 SEC games have for the Wildcats, with a loss. Kentucky used a dramatic late drive to force overtime with Texas, but the Wildcats were unable to score in the extra period.
Texas kicker Mason Shipley converted a 45-yard field goal for the 16-13 win.
A year after Cutter Boley impressed off the bench in Kentucky’s loss at Texas, UK’s second-year quarterback thrived against the Longhorns again. UK offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan was conservative for much of the night, asking Boley only to make short throws. Boley’s decision-making was not perfect, but he kept Kentucky in the game with multiple impressive scrambles.
Boley finished the night having completed 31 of 39 passes for 258 yards and one interception. He also rushed for 45 yards and one touchdown on 14 carries.
Boley outplayed Texas star quarterback Arch Manning for most of the night. Manning completed 12 of 27 passes for 132 yards.
Neither offense looked capable of scoring for much of the game, but a special teams play set up a Texas touchdown in the second quarter.
Kentucky (2-4, 0-4 SEC) narrowly avoided a safety when Boley was ruled to have been tackled at the Wildcats’ 1-yard line rather than in the end zone where he landed with 9 minutes left in the second quarter, but punter Aidan Laros was still backed into his own end zone when summoned two plays later. Texas wide receiver Ryan Niblett, who returned a punt for a touchdown last week against Oklahoma, returned Laros’ punt 45 yards to the Kentucky 5-yard line.
The UK defense almost made a miraculous goal line stand, appearing to force a fumble on third-and-goal from the 1-yard line, but Texas running back Quintrevion Wisner was ruled to have scored the touchdown before losing the ball.
Kentucky kicker Jacob Kauwe missed a 54-yard field goal attempt just before halftime but put Kentucky on the board with a 46-yarder on the Wildcats’ second drive of the third quarter. Texas answered with a 53-yard field goal for a 10-3 lead.
With Kentucky’s offense looking incapable of finding the end zone, Texas (5-2, 2-1) gave the Wildcats the break it needed with a pass interference penalty on a ball that appeared to be overthrown to Hardley Gilmore in the end zone just more than two minutes into the fourth quarter. That penalty moved UK into the red zone. Two plays later, Boley tied the game with a 16-yard scramble for a touchdown. Kentucky’s defense followed by forcing a three-and-out.
With the game tied at 10 and less than three minutes remaining, Kentucky look poised to pin Texas back with a good punt. Instead, UK defensive back Jantzen Dunn whiffed on a tackle just after Niblett fielded the punt. Niblett then ran 43 yards to give Texas the ball at the UK 42-yard line. Kentucky’s defense still looked on the verge of escaping the predicament when it forced a third-and-7 at the 39-yard line, but Manning found DeAndre Moore for a 9-yard completion to put the Longhorns in field goal range.
The Longhorns took a 13-10 lead with a 39-yard field goal with 57 seconds remaining, but Boley and the UK offense managed to drive quickly down the field to set up a 45-yarder from Kauwe with nine seconds left.
Turning point
On the first possession of overtime, Kentucky started with a 22-yard catch-and-run from Kendrick Law but was unable to score with a fresh set of downs at the Texas 3-yard line. On third-and-1 and fourth-and-1, running back Dante Dowdell tried to leap over the pile and was stopped, setting up the game-winning field goal for Texas.
Player of the game
On a night where neither offense was particularly effective, Niblett changed the game with two long punt returns. He caught just one pass, which went for a loss of 3 yards, but he tallied two punt returns for 88 yards.
Key stat
Earlier in the week Hamdan acknowledged Kentucky’s best route to explosive plays on offense this season had been short throws when a receiver was able to make someone miss. It should not have come as a surprise then that he avoided having Boley throw down the field for much of the night. Of Boley’s 258 passing yards, 170 came after the catch.
This story was originally published October 18, 2025 at 10:55 PM.
