Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 38-7 blowout of Florida
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Gameday: Kentucky 38, Florida 7
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Florida football game at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 38-7 win over Florida:
1. Cats emphatically break SEC home losing streak. Kentucky’s victory snapped a 10-game losing streak in home games against Southeastern Conference opponents.
Until Saturday night’s win over Florida, UK had not won an SEC game within the friendly confines of Kroger Field since beating the Gators 33-14 on Sept. 30, 2023.
After losing 10 straight SEC games overall, Kentucky (4-5, 2-5 SEC) has now won its past two, including the 10-3 road victory at Auburn on Nov. 1.
Since losing 31 straight games to Florida from 1987 through 2017, UK has subsequently gone 5-3 against the Gators.
2. Mark Stoops equals Bear Bryant. The victory over Florida on Saturday night is the fifth “on-the-field” win for Mark Stoops over the Gators as UK head man.
Stoops is now 5-8 overall against Florida, with on-the-field wins in 2018, 2021 (subsequently vacated by the NCAA due to rules violations within the UK program), 2022, 2023 and 2025.
Since World War II, Paul “Bear” Bryant is the only other Wildcats head man with five victories over the Gators — 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1953.
3. Boley vs. Lagway. The quarterback battle between Florida’s DJ Lagway and Kentucky’s Cutter Boley was a meeting of two of the top-rated QB recruits in the high school class of 2024.
On3 ranked Lagway as the nation’s best quarterback prospect for 2024, while it rated Boley the No. 25 QB in the same class.
In the first head-to-head meeting between the two class of 2024 QBs, Boley claimed the clear upper hand.
Lagway, whose sophomore season has been sabotaged by injuries and interceptions (he had thrown nine entering the game), was benched at halftime.
The benching came after the 6-foot-3, 247-pound Lagway threw three picks in the first half Saturday night. The Gators’ QB was fortunate that Kentucky only converted the three interceptions into three points.
For his one half of play, Lagway finished 11 of 19 passing for 83 yards with one touchdown pass and the three picks.
Other than a two-turnover misadventure in the final minute of the first half, Boley played well Saturday night. The 6-5, 220-pound Lexington Christian Academy product completed 18 of 23 passes for 168 yards. He threw touchdown passes of 29 yards to J.J. Hester and 26 yards to Jason Patterson.
On this night, the 25th-ranked QB in the class of 2024 clearly outplayed the No. 1-rated quarterback in that recruiting class.
4. Kentucky has some impressive young talent on defense. On a night when Kentucky lost defensive starters Alex Afari, Jordan Lovett and Sam Greene to injury and were already without breakout defensive line standout Tavion Gadson due to injury, the Wildcats nevertheless held Florida to 247 yards of total offense.
The Gators’ only touchdown was a short-field, 13-yard drive set up by a UK fumbled punt.
In the preseason, Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White said the young defensive talent in the UK program was as good as he had seen it since joining the Wildcats in 2018.
On Saturday night, some of that young talent was on display.
Sophomore nickekback Quay’sheed Scott made three tackles, a tackle for loss and picked off a pass he then returned for 55 yards.
Redshirt freshman defensive end Lorenzo Cowan had four tackles, including a TFL.
True freshman edge CJ Works made two tackles and shared in a tackle for loss.
Sophomore safety Cam Dooley, pressed into action in place of the injured Lovett, made four tackles.
Redshirt sophomore linebacker Grant Godfrey, filling in for Afari, made three stops and had a TFL.
Pass rush specialist Steven “Sack’em” Soles, a sophomore, was credited with two quarterback hurries.
In this age of player mobility, Kentucky will have to work to keep this young defensive nucleus together. If the Wildcats program can do that, there is promise around which to build.
5. Do we dare discuss bowl eligibility for UK? After starting the season 2-5, Kentucky is now 4-5 and only two victories away from earning bowl eligibility for the ninth time in 10 seasons.
To do that, UK will have to win twice in its remaining three games, all of which will be against ranked foes.
Next week, Kentucky will play undefeated FCS opponent Tennessee Tech (10-0), which is No. 5 in the AFCA FCS Top 25.
The Wildcats will then close out the 2025 regular season with road games at No. 16 Vanderbilt and No. 15 Louisville, which figures to fall in the rankings after a 29-26 overtime home loss to unranked California on Saturday night.
Fashion police
For its final SEC home game of 2025, Kentucky wore blue helmets, blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and blue pants.
Since 2020, UK is now 5-4 in all-blue uniforms.
This story was originally published November 8, 2025 at 10:38 PM.
