While the end of the regular season leaves a flurry of lucky teams pondering their College Football Playhoff hopes and others planning for warm weather and bowl games, not everyone is so lucky. A fifth SEC team found itself on the short end of bowl eligibility on Saturday. Kentucky now joins Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Arkansas and potentially Auburn on coming up short of bowl eligibility.
Probably more damaging for Mark Stoops and Kentucky than missing a bowl is how exactly it shaped up. Kentucky claimed three straight wins, including SEC victories over Florida and Auburn to reach 5-5 and give two final chances to earn a bowl berth. Kentucky was lit up by Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt 45-17 last week and then finished with a 41-0 loss to a Lousiville team that had lost three games in a row and was badly decimated by injuries.
Louisville got 113 rushing yards from a walk-on, Braxton Jennings, and then had 101 more rushing yards for a converted wide receiver, to roll up a 258-40 edge on the ground in the easy victory. Kentucky missed a field goal late in the first quarter and otherwise never threatened to score.
The Wildcats had reached eight consecutive bowl games under Stoops from 2016 through 2023, which was by far a program record (the next-best such streak was five years under Rich Brooks and Joker Phillips from 2006 to 2010). Stoops has the most wins of any coach in Kentucky football history, with an 82-80 mark (although 10 wins from 2021 are not officially recognized due to NCAA infractions).
But after two straight seasons without a bowl and with a combined 3-13 mark in SEC play, the calls for Stoops’s job are starting to pick up volume. Kentucky’s recruiting and NIL work has seemingly fallen well behind SEC standards and a massive talent gap is starting to show on the field.
Next season, Kentucky will face a nine-game SEC schedule. The dates have not been finalized, but the Wildcats are slated to play five SEC road games, including Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Tennessee. Of the other teams missing bowl eligibility in 2025, the only ones set for Kentucky’s schedule are Florida at home and South Carolina on the road.
Stoops’s buyout has been reported at $40.5 million and that is a large chunk to bite off for a Kentucky program that hasn’t exactly been a perennial power on the gridiron in the SEC. But with another long winter to consider things, Kentucky has plenty to ponder after 2025.
