One week a season, Kentucky football is elite. This is that week
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky has posted a 24-3 record in second games of the season since 1998.
- Six of those 24 week-two wins came against power conference opponents, including three SEC road victories.
- Recent week-two results show decline, including losses to Ole Miss in 2020 and South Carolina in 2024.
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Preview: Ole Miss at Kentucky football
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday’s Kentucky-Ole Miss game at Kroger Field.
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For 51 weeks every year, Kentucky football is an underdog, facing the daunting task of competing in the Southeastern Conference against rival programs which have inherent advantages that UK struggles to match.
Since 1998, however, there is one week each year when Kentucky Wildcats football is as successful as the Alabama Crimson Tide and triumphs more often than the Georgia Bulldogs.
This is that week.
With Lane Kiffin bringing No. 20 Mississippi (1-0, 0-0 SEC) to Kroger Field Saturday for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff against Mark Stoops and the troops, history would suggest UK (1-0, 0-0 SEC) has Ole Miss exactly where the Wildcats would want it.
Starting with Tim Couch’s final season running Hal Mumme’s Air Raid offense in 1998, Kentucky has been far more successful in the second games of seasons than in any other slot on its schedules.
Kentucky has won 24 of its past 27 games in the second week of seasons.
For that one week, the UK record has been as good as Alabama’s, which is also 24-3 in second games since 1998, and more successful than Georgia’s, which is 22-5.
If you wonder how Kentucky’s robust game-two success since 1998 compares to all the other slots on the UK schedule, you are in luck. I looked up those figures for each week over the past 27 years, plus this season’s first game:
• Game one: Counting last week’s 24-16 win over Toledo, Kentucky is 17-11 in first contests of seasons, a winning percentage of 60.7.
• Game two: 24-3, 88.9%
• Game three: 15-12, 55.6%
• Game four: 13-14, 48.1%
• Game five: 10-17, 37%
• Game six: 8-19, 29.6%
• Game seven: 14-13, 51.9%
• Game eight: 7-20, 25.9%
• Game nine: 10-17, 37%
• Game 10: 12-15, 44.4%
• Game 11: 16-10, 61.5% (Kentucky only played 10 regular season games in 2020).
• Game 12: 7-13, 35% (UK only played 11 regular seasons games from 1998 through 2001, and also in 2004 and 2005. The Cats played only 10 games in 2020).
The answer to why Kentucky football has been so much more successful in week two than in any other weeks of its seasons since 1998 is partially owed to scheduling.
Prior to 2014, the UK-Louisville game was played early in the season, and it was Kentucky’s season opener every year from 1994 through 2006. During that period, the Wildcats generally followed up the battle for the Governor’s Cup with U of L by playing a team from “down the college football food chain” in week two.
When UK was winning its second game in 18 consecutive seasons from 1998 through 2015, the Cats were playing a steady diet of Eastern Kentucky, Ball State, Murray State, Idaho State, Norfolk State, Kent State, etc. ...
However, soft scheduling is not all the story. As part of Kentucky’s 24-3 record in game twos over the past 27 seasons there are six wins over power conference opponents, including three SEC road victories — at South Carolina (26-22 in 2015), at Florida (27-16 in 2018) and at Florida again (26-16 in 2022).
UK is 6-3 overall against power conference opposition in the second game of seasons from 1998 through 2024.
It is an oft-repeated coaching cliche that teams tend to make their greatest improvement from games one to two. But, presumably, that would apply to both Kentucky and the teams it plays in game twos.
For UK, which has historically struggled to accumulate the level of depth that the more traditional SEC football kingpins have been able to build, there likely is something to the Wildcats consistently achieving their greatest success early in seasons before injury attrition afflicts the Kentucky roster.
The bad news for UK backers who are counting on Kentucky’s “week-two magic” Saturday against Mississippi in a game that appears crucial to UK’s full-season aspirations is there has been some recent weakening in the Wildcats’ week-two mojo.
Ole Miss and Kiffin have already pierced UK’s week-two aura. Mississippi escaped Kroger Field with a 42-41 overtime win in the second game of 2020. What was Kiffin’s first victory as Ole Miss coach was assured by the Wildcats missing a 49-yard field goal in regulation and an extra point in the OT.
Last year, in a game that “set up” similarly to this Saturday’s meeting with Mississippi, Kentucky laid a dinosaur egg in week two, absorbing a 31-6 throttling from SEC foe South Carolina. In a horrid offensive showing, Kentucky was limited to 183 yards of total offense by the Gamecocks, only 44 through the air.
Even with those recent wobbles, if you share the view that Ole Miss shapes up as potentially the pivotal game of Kentucky’s 2025 campaign, Wildcats football history since 1998 all but screams that the best time for UK to face such a crucial moment is in week two.
This story was originally published September 3, 2025 at 6:03 PM.
