We’re 37 days away from Kentucky’s Sept. 5 football opener against Miami of Ohio at Paul Brown Stadium.
Today we look at the Tennessee-Florida schedule factor.
The Cats have not beaten Tennessee in football since 1984. They haven’t beaten Florida since 1986. And UK plays each SEC East opponent every season.
It just so happens that the schedule breaks in a way that Florida and Tennessee both play at Kentucky in odd-numbered years, while the Cats visit both schools in even-numbered years.
Because of that, in odd-numbered years, such as this year, UK has two home games against teams it has not beaten in quite some time. In even-numbered years, those home opponents are replaced with teams the Cats might have a better chance of beating.
True? Sort of. Let’s look at the past dozen years, or starting when Hal Mumme took over the program in 1997. Years when Tennessee and Florida have come to Commonwealth, UK’s overall record is 28-42 (.400 winning percentage), with a 13-35 mark in the SEC. Years when those two games are on the road, Kentucky’s overall record is 33-39 (.458 winning percentage), with a 14-34 mark in the league.
That’s an average of not quite one less win per season in the years that Florida and Tennessee come to town.
Here’s the chart:
Chip, that’s interesting chart.
Let’s look at the start of the 12 game schedule under Brooks. I believe it began in 2006. With Louisville tanking the last two years that would give us two wins, one in an even year and one in an odd year. Our outstanding success against the other non conference opponents, the Norfork States, North Tezases, Westerns, Esaterns and such have give us a nine game win streak. Right there is 11 wins in three seasons!
Personally I don’t think if we played Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina in Commonwealth, at their place or in a hall closet would make any difference.
With such a winning streak against the non conference opponents, why should we worry about SEC games?
Certainly the Big Blue faithful would rather see a win against any body rather than a loss. So why don’t we quit the SEC and schedule teams we can beat or at least have a chance against and everyone will be happy. I bet if we tried real hard we could get 12 home games out of it. Murray State, Eastern, you know all those local teams that would bring in the Kentucky flavor and the alums from both schools could be happy as a pig and crap.
Yes, sir, that’s the way we should go. No more, wait for next year, getting people hurt against the better teams, we’d have an OUTSTANDING record. Brooks would probably stay on long enough to pass Joe Pa and we would get the something to brag about to the other schools. OR we can just play the regulars beat the non conf teams and pray for two wins in the SEC. Fun ain’t it?
I think it’s been known for many years that we generally do better when we have teams on our home schedule that we have a chance of beating. Might as well have UF & UT as ‘away’ games all the time, as we never beat them anywhere.
Wow tom, that was really insightful. Thank you for that stellar analysis. BTW, the author of this site is John Clay. Chip (assuming you mean Cosby) has another site he calls home. There is a link on the right hand column. I can see how you made that mistake though, what with the huge John Clay name and his picture at the top of the page. They both have a C in their name, and they look like twins.
Don’t quit your day job.
I’m not sure what John’s point is other than it doesn’t make much difference in total wins. Having both teams at home should give us a slight impetus in that we’ll have some great fans in the bleachers. It did wonders for us against Arkansas last year. I hope we put an end to one if not both of the streaks this year. We’ve built a solid team and have shown on numerous occassions we can beat the big boys, just not these two. This may be the year. We’ve beat LSU when at the top. Georgia as well. No team is a shoe in anymore. We’ll see what the chemistry provides this year.