Kentucky’s five-game win streak over Missouri hasn’t earned much respect from Mizzou
One of the more fascinating aspects of the Kentucky football ascension in the Mark Stoops era has been the reaction of players and fans from teams UK has begun to consistently beat.
At SEC East Rivals Missouri and South Carolina, in particular, the reactions to consistently coming out on the wrong end in football games against UK has seemed a combination of embarrassment, bewilderment and resentment.
As UK prepares to travel to Missouri on Saturday to seek a sixth straight victory over Mizzou in a 4 p.m. kickoff at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium, Tigers players quoted in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article this week expressed strong feelings — and some puzzlement — over having lost five years in a row to Kentucky.
“Man, it sucks,” Missouri senior safety Joshuah Bledsoe told the Post-Dispatch’s Dave Matter. “It’s like every year, it’s something. Why are we not beating this team? We should beat this team. We’ll get it done this time.”
“It’s definitely something we need to fix,” Mizzou receiver Barrett Banister said of the UK losing streak.” “... It’s time for us to get one.”
The formula that has allowed Stoops to go 34-22, 18-18 in the SEC since the start of the 2016 season — to move Kentucky from its traditional slot near the bottom of the SEC solidly into the middle of the conference — is not complicated.
Against SEC East foes, UK has won five of its last six vs. South Carolina; five of its last six against Vanderbilt; five in a row over Mizzou; and two of the past four vs. Tennessee.
Add in Kentucky’s 3-1 mark against intrastate rival Louisville over the prior four meetings and the Cats having won three of the past five against permanent SEC West cross-division foe Mississippi State and you have the building blocks of UK football improvement.
For Kentucky to continue to rise in football, three things must happen:
1.) UK must find a way to become more competitive vs. SEC East titans Georgia (Stoops is 0-7 vs. the Bulldogs) and Florida (1-6).
2.) The Cats must begin to win more often against SEC West teams other than Mississippi State (Stoops is 1-8 against the West outside of MSU).
3.) Kentucky must maintain the upper hand over the teams it has already been consistently beating.
In regard to the latter, it’s always good not to lose sight of the fact that the other schools are trying to win, too.
When Missouri made the controversial decision to axe alumnus Barry Odom and his 25-25 overall record after four years as Tigers head football coach following last season, one of the reasons listed in the Show Me State sports media to justify the firing was the losing streak against Kentucky.
(Odom, by the way, has gone on to do terrific work this season as defensive coordinator for SEC surprise team Arkansas).
With Kentucky coming off an immensely satisfying 34-7 pounding of Tennessee at Neyland Stadium last week, the challenge for Stoops and his veteran team this week is not to let first-year Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz and impressive Tigers redshirt freshman quarterback Connor Bazelak turn the prevailing trend of the UK-Mizzou series.
It’s interesting. In the 21st century, much of the passion that has animated “the Kentucky football experience” has centered on the need to snap decades-long UK losing streaks against Florida (snapped at 31 games in 2018), Tennessee (snapped at 26 games in 2011) and the teams coached by Steve Spurrier (snapped at 17 games in 2010).
Under Stoops, Kentucky has progressed to the point that, on Saturday, it will be defending a winning streak.
“It means absolutely nothing, right?” Stoops said of the win streak Monday on his weekly video news conference. “Truthfully, it means nothing.”
That does not appear to be the view from the other side of the streak in Missouri.
“This game means a little more, not just for myself,” said Mizzou junior linebacker Nick Bolton. “I have not beaten (UK), but there have been a couple five-year seniors who haven’t beaten them. It means a lot for me for those seniors to go out the right way.”
