Las Vegas isn’t being kind to Kentucky football, but that might be a good thing
Circa Sports has released its over/under win totals regarding SEC teams for the 2024-25 college football season, and you won’t be shocked to hear the sports book is not high on the local 11.
Alabama, Georgia and Texas lead the SEC with a predicted win over/under of 9.5 for the 12-game regular-season campaign. LSU, Ole Miss and Tennessee are 8.5. Auburn and Texas A&M are at 8. Florida, Missouri and South Carolina are at 7.5. Oklahoma is at 7. Arkansas and Vanderbilt are at 5.5.
Next comes Kentucky at 4.5.
Only Mississippi State, at 3.5, has a lower over/under total among SEC teams.
It makes sense. Mark Stoops’ team slipped to 4-8 last season. It will have a new starting quarterback in either Zach Calzada or Cutter Boley. It suffered significant losses on both sides of the ball, including 21 players who departed via the transfer portal. It has 26 new players from the portal.
It’s no surprise either that season ticket sales for 2025 are down. Not only are the Cats coming off their first non-COVID sub-500 season since 2015, they lost the Governor’s Cup game to Louisville by 27 points (41-14). They finished 1-7 in SEC play with losses to South Carolina, Georgia Vanderbilt, Florida, Auburn, Tennessee and Texas.
Stoops’ squad plays those same seven, plus Ole Miss, again this time around. South Carolina, Georgia, Auburn and Vanderbilt are all road games. Plus, Kentucky visits Louisville at season’s end — 18 days past when the basketball Cats and Cards meet on the basketball court.
And, don’t forget that UK’s season-opening opponent Toledo earned a 48-46 six-overtime win against Pittsburgh in the GameAbove Sports Bowl to finish 8-5 last fall. The Rockets are 35-19 over their last four seasons. They have won none or more games in eight of the last 14 years.
All this paints a fairly grim picture, no doubt. Vegas knows. Its sports books are not in the business of losing money.
Still, if there is a silver lining in the 2025 preseason doom and gloom: Few are expecting much from this Kentucky football season.
If, as has been speculated, the Cats somehow lost that blue-collar, chip-on-the-shoulder motivation the past three seasons, the team surely has many reasons to prove the doubters wrong.
That includes the head man. A couple of seasons ago, Stoops came within a whisker of being named the new coach at Texas A&M. Now, most so-called experts have him on a hot seat, despite a hefty buyout clause in his top-tier contract.
Readers of this space know I’m a Stoops fan/defender. He’s the winningest coach in school history. The Cats had reached a bowl game in eight straight seasons before the streak was snapped last year. He has raised the talent level, as evidenced by producing another first-round draft pick in cornerback Maxwell Hairston (30th overall by Buffalo), the fourth in Stoops’ tenure.
The 57-year-old head coach is a prideful guy. You know he’s heard the whispers that he hasn’t been able to adapt to the NIL/transfer portal era in a successful way. You know he wants to prove that narrative wrong, as well as prove that he remains an excellent coach.
Can he do it? There are factors in his favor. He’s held on to top recruiter Vince Marrow. Though his unit slipped to 44th in total defense last season, Brad White is still a terrific defensive coordinator. The UK offense struggled under first-year coordinator Bush Hamdan last season, but the play-caller owns a track record that makes you believe he can bounce back.
The guess here is that UK’s offensive line will be better, which will lead to a more productive ground game. Running the football will always be Stoops’ bread-and-butter. The wide receiver room will lack the known names from a year ago, but it could turn out to be a better unit.
Defensively, the Cats were respectable through much of the 2024 campaign until the wheels came off late. It lacked help from the offense. The hope is that Stoops will be able to play more complementary football this time around.
That’s the hope. Given the chaos and player movement that is current college football, who really knows for sure. Last year, South Carolina’s over/under prediction was 5.5. The Gamecocks won nine games. Kentucky would love to do the same.
