Know Your Foe: In a battle of 2 desperate teams, will UK or Louisville prevail?

Scouting Kentucky football’s next opponent, the Louisville Cardinals:

Game details for Kentucky vs. Louisville

Kentucky (5-6, 2-6 SEC) will face Louisville (7-4, 4-4 ACC) on Saturday at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium (seating capacity of 60,800) on the Belknap Campus of the University of Louisville.

The game will kick off at noon EST Saturday and be carried by the ACC Network.

Coach Jeff Brohm’s Cardinals lost 38-6 at SMU last Saturday.

Kentucky-Louisville history and trends

Kentucky leads the series with Louisville 20-16 in on-the-field results (the Wildcats’ 52-21 win over the Cardinals in 2021 was subsequently vacated by the NCAA due to rules violations in the UK program).

UK coach Mark Stoops is 6-5 vs. Louisville in on-the-field results.

Louisville head man Jeff Brohm is 1-1 vs. Kentucky.

Kentucky has won its past four games against Louisville at the venue now known as L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium.

Overall, there has been little home-field advantage in the modern Governor’s Cup rivalry — since 1994, Kentucky is 8-5 on U of L’s home field, while Louisville is 11-6 on UK’s home field.

Louisville is on a three-game losing skid with home defeats to California (29-26 in overtime) and Clemson (20-19) and the blowout road loss at SMU (38-6).

UK needs to win to become bowl eligible. Since the Wildcats-Cardinals game moved the regular-season finale in 2014, this will be the third time Kentucky has entered the contest needing to win to become postseason eligible. The Cats are 0-2 in such games, having lost to the Cards 44-40 in Louisville in 2014 and 38-24 in Lexington in 2015.

Most recent Kentucky-Louisville football game

Louisville freshmen running backs Isaac Brown (178 yards, two touchdowns) and Duke Watson (104 yards, two touchdowns) gashed the Kentucky run defense and the Cardinals snapped a five-game losing streak in the Governor’s Cup rivalry with a 41-14 rout of the Wildcats at Kroger Field.

Kentucky true freshman quarterback Cutter Boley made his first career start and had a rough go. Boley finished 6-for-15 passing for 48 yards and threw two interceptions.

The Lexington Christian Academy star was knocked from the game on Kentucky’s first drive of the third quarter by a hit that led to the ejection of Louisville defensive lineman Thor Griffith for targeting.

Kentucky-Louisville: Three things to know

1. Like Kentucky, the Louisville roster has experienced significant attrition late in the season due to injury. Most notably, star U of L running back Isaac Brown has not played since suffering what is described as a lower leg injury in the Cardinals’ 28-16 win at Virginia Tech.

That has been a massive loss, as Brown had run for over 100 yards in five of Louisville’s first eight games.

Keyjuan Brown, U of L’s second-leading rusher behind Brown, also missed the loss at SMU due to what was also reported to be a lower leg injury.

2. Louisville starting quarterback Miller Moss missed Saturday’s game at SMU due to a foot injury. A transfer from Southern Cal, Moss has completed 64.3% of his throws for 2,344 yards with 11 touchdowns versus seven interceptions.

In his place, redshirt freshman Deuce Adams started for U of L at SMU. Adams completed 12 of 17 throws for 94 yards and ran seven times for 14 yards.

Redshirt junior Brady Allen also saw time under center for Louisville against SMU. Allen completed two of his three passes for 6 yards and ran once for 4 yards.

3. Louisville head man Jeff Brohm has been a good rivalry coach across his previous head coaching stops.

As Western Kentucky’s coach (2014-16), Brohm went 2-1 against the Hilltoppers’ primary rival, Middle Tennessee State.

In his time at Purdue (2017-2022), Brohm went 4-1 against the Boilermakers’ archrival, Indiana.

Counting his 1-1 mark against UK as U of L coach, Brohm is 7-3 as a college head coach against his team’s main rival.

This story was originally published November 24, 2025 at 6:30 AM.

Mark Story

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-444-4731

Mark Story has worked in the Lexington Herald-Leader sports department since Aug. 27, 1990, and has been a Herald-Leader sports columnist since 2001. I have covered every Kentucky-Louisville football game since 1994, every UK-U of L basketball game but three since 1996-97 and every Kentucky Derby since 1994. Support my work with a digital subscription