LEXINGTON, Ky. — Early in Mark Stoops’ weekly news conference looking ahead to Kentucky’s suddenly consequential SEC home meeting with Vanderbilt on Saturday night, the UK coach expressed gratitude that the game will be in Lexington.
“Glad to be at home this week in a night game,†Stoops said Monday at Kroger Field. “Hope to have a tremendous environment here Saturday night.â€
Actually, based on recent Kentucky football history, Stoops and UK would have more reason for confidence if Saturday’s game were being played in Nashville.
In a development that defies traditional sports expectations, UK is in a multi-year stretch in which it has fared substantially better against SEC opponents on the road than it has when league contests take place in Lexington.
Consider:
Over their last 11 SEC road games, Stoops and troops have gone an eminently respectable 6-5.
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Conversely, over its previous 11 SEC home games, Kentucky is a horrid 2-9.
When I asked Stoops on Monday at Kroger Field for his theory on why Kentucky has recently fared so much better against conference foes on the road than at home, the UK coach shook his head.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,†Stoops said. “You look at who we played and how we played … no, I don’t have a theory.â€
In the big picture, the primary reason that Kentucky is coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons that were deemed disappointing by much of the Big Blue Nation is UK’s failure to defend its home field in league games.
The Wildcats compiled 1-3 league marks in conference contests at Kroger Field in both 2022 and 2023.
On the other hand, in the 10-win seasons Kentucky produced in 2018 and 2021 (the latter of which was subsequently vacated by the NCAA due to rules violations committed by UK), the Cats went 3-1 each year in SEC games played in Lexington.
Already this season, Kentucky is 0-2 in league home games, having been mauled 31-6 by South Carolina and fallen just short of a monumental upset in a 13-12 loss to then-No. 1 Georgia.
Yet, following an upset of then-No. 6 Mississippi in Oxford in their most recent game two Saturdays ago, the Wildcats are 1-0 in the SEC on the road.
Because all but three of the 22 contests we are examining from UK’s respective 11-game home and away stretches were played under the SEC’s previous division-based scheduling format, most of the teams Kentucky has faced, both home and away, are its old rivals from the SEC East division.
Nevertheless, at least part of the explanation for Kentucky’s recent “home-field disadvantage†can be laid off on the home, league schedule having been been a tad stronger than the road, league slate has been.
Over its past 11 home SEC games, Kentucky has played six foes ranked in the AP Top 25 — and gone 1-5 in those games.
Conversely, UK has faced four ranked teams among its 11 most recent road contests. The Wildcats went 2-2 in those contests.
Making the Cats’ recent travails in SEC home contests even more interesting, the existing win/loss splits for Kentucky football at home and on the road are a full reversal from the first six full seasons of the Wildcats’ current eight-year bowl streak.
From the start of 2016 through the end of 2021, Kentucky went 16-9 in home Southeastern Conference games — and 9-16 in league games played away from Lexington.
Even in the struggling first three seasons of the Stoops era (2013 through 2015) — when the coach was trying to elevate the 2-10 program he had inherited from Joker Phillips — UK fared better at home in SEC contests (3-9) than it did on the road (1-11).
Whatever explains Kentucky’s recent home-field woes versus league foes, you cannot pin the blame on the fan environment at Kroger Field.
In a stadium whose official seating capacity is listed at 61,000, Kentucky has drawn crowds in excess of 60,000 for 12 of its past 14 home SEC games going back to the start of the 2021 season.
The student support for UK football has been better over the past three seasons than it has been in decades. During Kentucky’s near miss against No. 1 Georgia on Sept. 14, an energetic UK student cheering section all but forced the remainder of the Kroger Field crowd to raise its level of support for the Wildcats’ upset bid.
Looking forward, Vanderbilt and its magician of a quarterback, Diego Pavia, are coming to Lexington off the shocking 40-35 upset of then-No. 1 Alabama last week.
Even though coach Clark Lea’s Commodores are 0-2 this season on the road, Vandy is not the ideal foe for Kentucky as the Wildcats again seek to reverse their recent pattern of home struggle in SEC games.
Over UK’s last four meetings against Vanderbilt in Nashville, the Cats are 4-0 with an average margin of victory of 22.75 points a contest.
In the last four Kentucky-Vanderbilt games at Kroger Field, however, UK is 3-1 and has not won any game by more than seven points.
UK’s most recent win against SEC foes
The year in which Kentucky last scored a home victory over the other Southeastern Conference football programs:
— Alabama, 1997.
— Arkansas, 2019.
— Auburn, 1966.
— Florida, 2023.
— Georgia, 2006.
— LSU, 2021.*
— Mississippi, 2011.
— Mississippi State, 2022.
— Missouri, 2021.*
— Oklahoma, N/A.
— South Carolina, 2020.
— Tennessee, 2017.
— Texas, N/A.
— Texas A&M, N/A.
— Vanderbilt, 2020.
* Kentucky’s 10 wins in 2021 were subsequently vacated by the NCAA due to rules violations by UK.
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