Will South Carolina become Kentucky football’s primary SEC rival?

How would you feel about a world in which South Carolina is Kentucky’s football’s primary SEC rival?

Though UK’s football series with Tennessee has caused the Big Blue Nation little but pain, there has never been any question that the Rocky Toppers are the Wildcats’ main SEC rival.

Now, in a time when the future format of SEC football scheduling remains unsettled, there is reason to think the annual Wildcats-Volunteers border battle is on borrowed time.

Ever since Oklahoma and Texas joined to create a 16-team SEC, there has been uncertainty over what the conference’s football scheduling will look like moving forward.

On his Oct. 23, 2023, radio show, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops was asked whether UK was assured of continuing to play Tennessee every year regardless of which scheduling format — eight league games or nine — the SEC ultimately adopts.

At the 27:28 mark of that show, Stoops said that “regardless of whether (the future SEC schedule format) is nine or eight (games) or whatever, we will not play (Tennessee) every year.”

For this year and next year, UK and UT are playing. The SEC has determined that its 16 football teams will play an eight-game slate that will involve each school playing the same teams in both 2024 and 2025.

Beyond 2025, there are no certainties in SEC football scheduling. That’s why, almost by default, Kentucky and South Carolina could end up as football “rivals.”

If the SEC stays at eight league games and adopts a “one-and-seven” — one permanent foe, seven rotating opponents— scheduling format, the annual rivals seem relatively easy to assign:

Alabama-Auburn; Arkansas-Missouri; Florida-Georgia; LSU-Texas A&M; Mississippi-Mississippi State; Oklahoma-Texas; Tennessee-Vanderbilt.

That would leave Kentucky paired with South Carolina as its annual “rival” by the process of elimination.

Even in the projections of a nine-game SEC scheduling format — which would feature three permanent foes and six rotating teams — many have Kentucky and South Carolina paired annually.

So in terms of what turns a team into a “rival,” let’s evaluate South Carolina’s suitability for filling a primary rivalry role for UK.

Quality one for a rivalry: A long history.

The Wildcats and Gamecocks had played only three times prior to South Carolina joining the SEC in 1992. As fellow members of the former SEC East, UK and USC have subsequently played in 32 straight seasons.

That’s not nothing, but pales in comparison to Kentucky’s history with its traditional SEC foes Tennessee (119 games), Vanderbilt (96), Florida (84) and Georgia (77).

Quality two for a rivalry: Geographic proximity.

The states of Kentucky and South Carolina are not adjacent.

Only three SEC schools — Missouri, Tennessee and Vanderbilt — are located within the seven states that adjoin the commonwealth.

Quality three for a rivalry: Competitive football.

As Kentucky’s dismal showing against Tennessee in football (26-84-9 overall, loser of 36 of the past 39 meetings) proves, other factors can override a lack of competitiveness to sustain feelings of rivalry.

Still, the best rivalries are those where the competitive ebb and flow passes from side to side.

South Carolina and Kentucky have had that ebb and flow.

“A team that we always seem to have good games with, “ Stoops said Monday of South Carolina at his weekly news conference in advance of Saturday’s SEC opener between the two teams.

Prior to the Gamecocks joining the SEC, UK and USC went 1-1-1 in three games.

Once South Carolina came into the Southeastern Conference in 1992, Kentucky was 5-3 vs. the Gamecocks in the 1990s.

South Carolina went 10-0 against UK in the 2000s — but seven of those games were decided by seven points or fewer.

When the 2010s came, Kentucky went 6-4 vs. South Carolina.

So far in the 2020s, the series stands 2-2.

Of the 32 games between South Carolina and Kentucky as SEC members, 18 have been decided by one score.

Quality four for a rivalry: Bad blood.

When Kentucky played at South Carolina in 2017, the Gamecocks captains, Hayden Hurst, Deebo Samuel, D.J. Wonnum and D.J. Smith, refused to shake hands with their UK counterparts before the coin toss.

That infuriated the Wildcats, and seemed to play a motivational role in the 23-13 Kentucky victory that followed.

“They just didn’t want to shake our hands,” then-UK quarterback Stephen Johnson said at the time. “(That) gave us even more motivation, which was pretty stupid on their part.”

Two years ago, in an interview shown on the SEC Network, Stoops talked about how he had built Kentucky from its longtime status as a Southeastern Conference doormat into a respectable program.

“It’s easy to change the climate, you just change a uniform, talk a little game, dance around, put on some stupid sunglasses, you can change a climate,” Stoops said. “But to change a culture is at the core, and I’m quite certain we’ve changed our culture.”

Because South Carolina coach Shane Beamer had, at that time, just released a hype video in which he put on an ostentatious pair of sunglasses, some interpreted Stoops’ words as “shade” directed toward Beamer.

Stoops subsequently said he was talking about his experiences within his own program, not Beamer, and I believe him. In 12 years of covering Stoops, I’ve never once heard him say something disparaging in public about another football coach.

Nevertheless, South Carolina has gotten ample social media mileage out of the “sunglasses controversy” — and is 2-0 against Kentucky since it happened.

Rivalry bottom line: By history and geography, Kentucky and South Carolina are not rivals.

Yet if the SEC’s scheduling machinations ultimately end with the Wildcats playing the Gamecocks, and not Tennessee, annually, there is probably enough recent controversy and competitive football between the two to grow a “rivalry.”

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