LEXINGTON, Ky. — For Kentucky, there’s no overstating how important Saturday night’s contest with Missouri is to the Wildcats’ 2021 season.
A victory opens the door wide for Mark Stoops and troops to produce another 2018-style breakthrough season, one that reinforces this is not your father’s Kentucky football.
Yet, from the big-picture vantage point, there are even larger implications for both programs riding on the outcome of Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. kickoff between UK (1-0, 0-0 SEC) and Mizzou (1-0, 0-0 SEC) at Kroger Field.
A season ago in Columbia, first-year coach Eli Drinkwitz’s Tigers broke a five-game Missouri losing streak against Kentucky by pushing the Wildcats around at the line of scrimmage.
In a 20-10 victory, Mizzou controlled the football an astounding 43:10 of the 60-minute game. The Tigers converted 10 of 20 third-down attempts and four of five fourth downs while outgaining Kentucky 421 yards to 145.
“They had 20 points but it felt like 40 by the way they controlled the ball,” Stoops said Monday during his weekly news conference at Kroger Field. “They played more physical than us. That’s uncharacteristic. I don’t particularly like that.”
When Stoops came to Kentucky after the 2012 season, UK was coming off a 2-10 year in which it failed to win a league game. The Wildcats were in the middle of a six-year stretch (2010-2015) when they went 8-40 in Southeastern Conference games.
With James Franklin then working a football miracle at Vanderbilt, Kentucky in 2012 was unquestionably the worst program in the SEC East.
It took Stoops until his fourth season to get the Cats into position to climb. Starting that year, however, UK has methodically risen in the divisional pecking order.
Although Tennessee fans in particular have had a difficult time adjusting to the current reality, since 2016 Kentucky has been the third best football program in the SEC East.
That is reflected in total number of wins since the start of the 2016 season: 1. Georgia 53; 2. Florida 43; 3. Kentucky 38; 4. Missouri 31; 5. Tennessee 30; 6. South Carolina 29; 7. Vanderbilt 20.
It is also shown in the total number of SEC regular-season victories since 2016: 1. Georgia 32; 2. Florida 28; 3. Kentucky 20; 4. Missouri 18; 5. South Carolina 17; 6. Tennessee 14; 7. Vanderbilt 8.
So now Stoops and UK are fighting a two-front war. While Kentucky seeks ways to become more of a threat to SEC East kingpins Georgia and Florida, it also must work to hold off the rest of the division.
Of those, Missouri is the biggest immediate threat.
Even as UK bested Mizzou five straight from 2015 through 2019, three of those games were decided by one score.
Missouri backers would point out that controversial officiating actions late in games played some role in UK’s six-point victory over the Tigers in Lexington in 2017 and a massive part in Kentucky’s last-play, one-point win vs. Mizzou in Columbia the following year.
In addition to ending Missouri’s losing skid vs. Kentucky in his first season, Drinkwitz, 38, led the Tigers to a better-than-expected 5-5 record against an all-SEC schedule.
Under Drinkwitz, a Gus Malzahn protege, Missouri has recruiting momentum. According to the Rivals.com team rankings, Mizzou has been out-recruiting Kentucky.
In the 2021 signing class, Missouri ranked 20th in the country and its signees had an average star ranking of 3.17.
Meanwhile, Kentucky rated 35th in the country for 2021 and its signees had an average star rating of 3.11 (that does not factor in the transfer portal, from which UK did especially good work, gaining four opening-game starters including quarterback Will Levis and star flanker Wan’Dale Robinson).
For the ongoing 2022 recruiting season, Missouri as of Monday morning stood 26th in the Rivals team rankings with a 3.46 average; Kentucky was 36th with a 3.33 average.
All of that is why the big-picture stakes are high for both UK and Mizzou on Saturday night.
A Kentucky victory slows Drinkwitz’s roll; says what happened last year in Columbia was an anomaly; and extends UK’s home-field win streak over Missouri to four.
Conversely, a Missouri win only enhances Drinkwitz’s reputation as an up-and-comer; backs up what occurred last season at Faurot Field; and gives Mizzou a claim to having supplanted Kentucky at No. 3 in the SEC East pecking order.
For UK, its 2020 game at Mizzou was contested under extenuating circumstances. The trip to Columbia was the first game in which Kentucky’s cancer-stricken offensive line coach, John Schlarman, was too ill to travel with the team.
Not even a full month later, Schlarman died.
Meanwhile, Missouri last year played like beating Kentucky was an urgent program priority.
That day, Kentucky came nowhere close to matching Mizzou’s fire.
This year, Stoops vows the Wildcats will play with a zeal that matches the importance of beating Missouri to Kentucky’s program aspirations.
“I sensed that they were more prepared to play last year than we were — and that’s on me,” Stoops said. “I can promise you, that’s not going to happen again.”
