Are we headed toward a Kentucky-Louisville football scheduling impasse?
Last week, as it was becoming apparent that an SEC scheduling edict might result in no Kentucky-Louisville football game in 2020, I asked U of L Athletics Director Vince Tyra what that might mean for the Governor’s Cup rivalry.
“We are going to take (2020) as a (Kentucky) forfeit,” Tyra joked.
Had COVID-19 and the efforts to contain it not intervened, the Wildcats and Cardinals would have battled for the 27th consecutive year on Nov. 28 at Cardinal Stadium.
Instead, the SEC ruled no non-league football games for 2020, derailing our state’s marquee annual college football showdown.
So what now? Should Kentucky travel to Louisville next year to replace the game it was supposed to play there this November? Should UK insist on the original contract being honored, meaning U of L visiting Lexington in 2021?
Tyra expressed optimism that he and UK counterpart Mitch Barnhart will reach an amicable solution. “Mitch and I talk about a lot of these things pretty comfortably, so I am sure we would get back on the phone and work it out,” Tyra said.
Well, maybe.
Across multiple sports, the 21st century history of the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry has proven that rationality does not always prevail in UK-U of L scheduling conflicts.
Let’s review:
Volleyball dispute: Entering the 2006-07 season, Kentucky and Louisville had played volleyball in every school year since 1980-81.
However, for 2006, UK said it could only play U of L on one of two September dates — neither of which was amenable to Louisville.
U of L countered by submitting 33 dates on which it said it was available to face Kentucky. UK said no to those, and the teams did not play.
Subsequently, the scheduling impasse spilled over to the following seasons. The 2006 game that did not take place would have been in Lexington.
U of L insisted that Kentucky had chosen not to play that game, so any resumption in the series must begin at The Ville.
UK balked.
It was not until 2009, when Kentucky relented and agreed to travel to Louisville to get the series up and running again, that the rivals returned to playing.
Women’s soccer conflict: Going into the 2019-20 school year, UK and U of L had played women’s soccer every year since 2008.
Yet, for reasons that were murky, there was no Cats-Cards match this past year.
Louisville said its coaching staff concluded its ACC schedule was too challenging to allow it to play Kentucky, too.
Without specifying, UK claimed “there were a couple of things that came up” that prevented a game with U of L.
Kentucky, at least, publicly expressed a willingness to resume the series.
First football scheduling imbroglio: From the time the modern UK-U of L football series resumed in 1994 until the arrival of Rich Brooks as Kentucky head coach in 2003, the agreement between the two schools was to play Kentucky-Louisville as the season opener.
(The only exception was 2001, when Louisville beat New Mexico State in a preseason “classic” the week before facing UK).
The idea was to use the Governor’s Cup game to promote interest in football throughout the summer. Also, to play it while the fan bases of both UK and U of L had optimism, as opposed to competing later in the year when negative results might have sapped hope.
Brooks, though, did not like playing a coach-defining game as the season opener and began to agitate to have the contest moved later on the schedule.
U of L resisted.
After much public back and forth, the two schools reached a compromise.
From 2007 through 2013, the Cats-Cards game was not played as the opener when it was in Lexington; but it was the first game when in Louisville.
That pact lasted until 2014 when, at the request of the SEC and ACC, the rivals commenced playing as the regular-season finale.
Current football situation: According to fbschedules.com, Kentucky and Louisville are contracted to play through at least 2027.
As has been the case since Cardinal Stadium opened in 1998, games in even-numbered years are slated to be played in Louisville, with the odd-numbered years scheduled for Lexington.
With no battle between Mark Stoops and the Wildcats and Scott Satterfield’s Cardinals for the Governor’s Cup in 2020, the most logical way to resume the series would be for Kentucky to agree to travel to Louisville next season.
There is at least one major ancillary reason why that would be beneficial to UK.
As it is now, Kentucky’s schedule is out of balance in terms of when the most attractive teams play in Lexington.
Currently, odd-numbered years see Kentucky always play host to Florida, Missouri, Tennessee, a rotating SEC West foe and Louisville.
Even-numbered seasons see Georgia, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt visit Kroger Field.
Let’s stipulate that Florida, Tennessee and Louisville are the three annual opponents that most move the needle for the Big Blue Nation.
Not having all three on the same home/away schedule rotation would improve the UK football experience for the ticket-buying public.
Kentucky traveling to Louisville in 2021 would achieve that.
