Does Kentucky football need a bolder approach to stand out in the expanded SEC?

We are approaching an interesting moment in the life of the Kentucky Wildcats football program.

Coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons in which the general consensus is that Mark Stoops’ troops were capable of better, UK will begin play in 2024 in a newly expanded Southeastern Conference that has added traditional Big 12 titans Oklahoma and Texas to a league already stacked with football heavyweights.

Last week, that confluence of realities led one longtime Kentucky football observer to raise an interesting point: For UK to reinvigorate what had been the upward arc of its football fortunes in the Stoops coaching era, do the Wildcats need to be bolder?

Specifically, should Kentucky take a risk to energize its fan base by upgrading its non-conference schedule even as UK’s already-difficult league becomes tougher?

Kentucky ceased playing border rival Indiana in 2005. In every year but one since then, the Kentucky non-league schedule has conformed to the same structure:

UK plays intrastate rival Louisville (ACC), two teams from down the FBS “food chain” in the so-called “Group of Five” conferences plus an opponent from the FCS.

The exception to that practice came in 2020. That year, due to efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, SEC teams played only league games in the regular season. As you will see below, that season of exclusively “SEC on SEC violence” left some lessons to be learned.

In the coming season, Georgia will open with a neutral-site contest (Atlanta) vs. ACC power Clemson. LSU lifts the lid on its 2024 campaign with a contest vs. USC in Las Vegas.

Can you imagine how hyped the Big Blue Nation would be if UK began a football season playing a similar-caliber game? Envision the Cats vs. the Miami Hurricanes in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium or Kentucky against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

Yet as tantalizing as the thought of opening a season with such a marquee matchup is, there are at least three reasons that support Kentucky continuing to schedule as it has:

▪ Reason one: When the UK program reaches the point where it averages eight or nine wins a season over a five-year period, it would then make sense to upgrade the non-league strength of schedule.

However, even with the Stoops-era improvements in UK football — eight straight bowl trips; two of Kentucky’s four all-time 10-win seasons since 2018 — the Wildcats have won more than seven regular-season games exactly twice (2018 and 2021) since 1984.

▪ Reason two: The overwhelming majority of the other SEC schools schedule as Kentucky does.

Of the 16 Southeastern Conference football programs, only three will play more than one non-league contest vs. another Power Four conference opponent in the impending season.

Over-scheduled Florida will play three such games — vs. Miami (ACC), Central Florida (Big 12) and Florida State (ACC).

Georgia and LSU will each tackle two non-conference games vs. Power Four opponents. Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs will play ACC foes Clemson and Georgia Tech; Brian Kelly’s Tigers will face Big Ten opponents USC and UCLA.

The other 13 SEC teams, including league newcomers Oklahoma and Texas, will all play only one power-league foe in the non-conference in 2024.

That COVID-impacted 2020 season, in which SEC teams played only each other in the regular season, showed why Southeastern Conference teams tend toward soft out-of-league slates.

After 14 SEC teams put each other through a meat grinder, five finished 2020 with between five and six wins. Five more league teams finished with three victories or fewer.

▪ Reason three: It seems likely the SEC will soon add another power-conference game to the Kentucky schedule.

We know that, even as a newly 16-team league, the Southeastern Conference is staying at eight league games for 2024 and 2025.

However, it still feels all but inevitable that the SEC will eventually adopt a nine-game league slate.

Once that happens, some believe Kentucky will pull the plug on its annual series with archrival Louisville. Not playing U of L would be a mistake on multiple levels.

But adding a ninth SEC contest and continuing to battle U of L for the Governor’s Cup would, obviously, mean 10 power-conference games a season for the Cats.

Under that scenario, it’s all but impossible to justify Kentucky adding another name foe — even in a one-year, “early-season classic” scenario.

The hard reality remains that Wildcats football still doesn’t have enough margin for error to make juicing the non-league schedule a smart move.

SEC non-league football games in 2024

▪ Alabama: Western Kentucky, South Florida, at Wisconsin, Mercer.

▪ Arkansas: Arkansas-Pine Bluff, at Oklahoma State, UAB, Louisiana Tech.

▪ Auburn: Alabama A&M, California, New Mexico, ULM.

▪ Florida: Miami, Samford, Central Florida, Florida State.

▪ Georgia: Clemson (in Atlanta), Tennessee Tech, Massachusetts, Georgia Tech.

▪ Kentucky: Southern Mississippi, Ohio, Murray State, Louisville.

▪ LSU: USC (in Las Vegas), Nicholls, UCLA, South Alabama.

▪ Mississippi: Furman, Middle Tennessee State, at Wake Forest, Georgia Southern.

▪ Mississippi State: Eastern Kentucky, at Arizona State, Toledo, Massachusetts.

▪ Missouri: Murray State, Buffalo, Boston College, at Massachusetts.

▪ Oklahoma: Temple, Houston, Tulane, Maine.

▪ South Carolina: Old Dominion, Akron, Wofford, at Clemson.

▪ Tennessee: Chattanooga, North Carolina State (in Charlotte), Kent State, UTEP.

▪ Texas: Colorado State, at Michigan, Texas-San Antonio, ULM.

▪ Texas A&M: Notre Dame, McNeese State, Bowling Green, New Mexico State.

▪ Vanderbilt: Virginia Tech, Alcorn State, at Georgia State, Ball State.

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