The one game Mark Stoops and Kentucky football most need to win in 2025
When social media influencer Lane Kiffin accompanies his Mississippi football team to Kroger Field to face Kentucky on Sept. 6, the Rebels figure to bring a heaping helping of motivation.
UK’s 20-17 upset of then-No. 6 Ole Miss last season in Oxford essentially kept the Rebs out of the College Football Playoff.
Ultimately, 2024 became a year in which it took at least 10 regular season wins for an SEC team to make the playoff. The Rebels’ shocking loss to a UK team that would finish last year with only one Southeastern Conference win (1-7 SEC) meant Mississippi came up one regular-season victory short of 10.
Yet a game in which Ole Miss figures to be burning for redemption also shapes up as perhaps the pivotal contest for Mark Stoops and troops in 2025.
Coming off a 4-8 slog last year, Kentucky will face Mississippi in the 2025 SEC opener carrying the weight of multiple dubious streaks:
▪ UK is a horrid 2-11 in its last 13 SEC home games;
▪ Kentucky is 3-14 in its 17 most recent contests vs. power conference opposition;
▪ In nine contests last season vs. power conference foes, the Wildcats never scored more than 20 points;
▪ Over its past 24 SEC games, UK has scored fewer than 30 points in 22.
Those numbers explain the ample fan negativity that has surrounded Stoops’ program this summer. The quickest way to flip that tone would be for the Cats to triumph in their first meeting with an SEC opponent in 2025.
Based on recent history, there’s reason to think Kentucky and Mississippi will play to the wire. In the three prior meetings between Kiffin and the Rebels and Stoops and the Wildcats, the game’s outcome hung in the balance in the final minute of all three.
2020: In a shoot-out, Ole Miss bested Kentucky 42-41 in overtime at Kroger Field. The victory gave Kiffin his first win as Mississippi’s head coach.
UK’s fate was sealed by a missed PAT in the OT and a missed 49-yard field goal in the third quarter.
2022: No. 7 Kentucky lost 22-19 at No. 14 Ole Miss in the most excruciating manner possible. The Wildcats missed two extra points and a 38-yard field-goal attempt and had what probably would have been a game-winning touchdown pass with 58 seconds left called back due to an illegal motion penalty.
Needing a touchdown to win, the Cats’ final two offensive drives ended when quarterback Will Levis lost fumbles at the Ole Miss 21- and 25-yard lines, respectively.
2024: With Kentucky down 17-13 with 4:04 left in the game, Stoops went for it on fourth-and-7 from Kentucky’s own 20-yard line. The result was a 63-yard pass completion from Brock Vandagriff to Barion Brown that set up the go-ahead TD that was subsequently scored by Josh Kattus to put UK up 20-17 with 2:25 left.
Mississippi’s chance to at least force overtime went awry with 48 seconds left when Rebels kicker Caden Davis hooked a 48-yard field goal attempt (way) wide left.
Ole Miss had entered last season’s Kentucky game leading the nation in total offense (670.8 yards a game) and first downs (130). The UK “D” held the Rebels to 353 total yards and to 1-for-10 on third-down conversions.
UK’s offense helped its defense by controlling the ball for a robust 39:43 of game time.
Both Kentucky and Mississippi will look substantially different in 2025 than the teams that faced off last Sept. 28.
The Cats will enter the year with 50 new players after undergoing a massive roster overhaul following last season’s disappointing results.
Ole Miss had eight players selected in the 2025 NFL draft, including first-round picks in defensive tackle Walter Nolen (No. 16 to Arizona) and quarterback Jaxson Dart (No. 25 to the New York Giants).
With Dart toiling in metropolitan New York City, the controls of Kiffin’s offense are expected to pass to redshirt sophomore Austin Simmons. A 6-foot-4, 215-pound product of Miami, Simmons has already started to attract hype as a potential Heisman Trophy sleeper.
Whatever the validity of that, Simmons will be making his first career SEC road start in Lexington, a fact that the Kentucky defense will need to exploit.
While UK laid a dinosaur egg in the second week last year, falling 31-6 to South Carolina, the Wildcats have historically fared well in game two of seasons.
Under Stoops, UK is 9-3 in second games. That includes SEC wins at South Carolina (2015), at Florida (2018 and 2022) and vs. Missouri (2021).
With Kentucky slated to face a rugged 2025 schedule, it’s challenging to draw up a realistic path to bowl eligibility for the Cats that does not include a home win over Ole Miss.
Which is why the Rebels are a team Mark Stoops and UK really need to beat.
UK’s most recent SEC home wins
The most recent season in which Kentucky football has beaten each of its Southeastern Conference rivals in games played in Lexington:
▪ Alabama 1997
▪ Arkansas 2019
▪ Auburn 1966
▪ Florida 2023
▪ Georgia 2006
▪ LSU 2021
▪ Mississippi 2011
▪ Mississippi State 2022
▪ Missouri 2021
▪ Oklahoma (UK is 0-1 vs. OU in Lexington, a 29-8 loss in 1982)
▪ South Carolina 2020
▪ Tennessee 2017
▪ Texas (This season’s Oct. 18 meeting will be the first ever between UK and Texas in Lexington)
▪ Texas A&M (UK is 0-1 vs. A&M in Lexington, a 7-6 loss in 1953)
▪ Vanderbilt 2020
