{"id":367176,"date":"2025-11-09T15:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T15:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/367176\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T15:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T15:52:11","slug":"ksr-today-no-you-didnt-dream-that-kentucky-crushed-florida-and-it-feels-so-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/367176\/","title":{"rendered":"KSR Today: No, you didn’t dream that – Kentucky crushed Florida, and it feels so good"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a point midway through the fourth quarter where I looked down at the score and thought my eyes were deceiving me, the last couple of hours probably a dream or hallucination. I\u2019d eventually snap out of it and find a 7-3 slobberknocker on my screen, or worse, another a lot to a little performance favoring whoever Kentucky <\/a>was playing that day. That was the story of the season, and more broadly, the Mark Stoops <\/a><\/strong>era in recent years. The Wildcats have been a better sleep aid than NyQuil as of late, so it all adds up.<\/p>\n

No amount of face smacks or arm pinches could shake that 38-7 masterclass away, Stoops shutting up his critics \u2014 hand up, guilty as charged \u2014 with the best football product we\u2019ve seen in Lexington in years. In fact, it may have been the most impressive all-around performance against SEC competition in 13 years of this administration. The numbers back that up, too, as it\u2019s the largest margin of victory for Kentucky in league play in nearly three decades when the Cats beat Vanderbilt by 38 points in 1998. It\u2019s also the largest margin of victory against Florida since 1950.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the 50s, it\u2019s also the first time the Wildcats have won three consecutive home games against Florida since 1950 to 1955. Not a bad way to end a 770-day home losing streak against SEC competition, right?<\/p>\n

Look, Auburn and Florida aren\u2019t very good and this probably doesn\u2019t change much big picture \u2014 not yet, anyway. If Kentucky uses this momentum to lay an egg against 10-0 Tennessee Tech, winning ugly or somehow losing outright, followed by road losses at Vanderbilt and Louisville, it\u2019s probably still time for a divorce at the end of the season at 4-8 or 5-7. I\u2019d even argue that splitting those last two, particularly with a loss to Vince Marrow and the Cardinals, should lead to a hug and farewell to the winningest coach in program history for a fresh start across the board. We can talk about those scenarios if\/when the time comes.<\/p>\n

The current reality, though, is that Kentucky played some really good football on Saturday and the path is now there to finish the season exceeding all expectations we had entering 2025. The Wildcats were a muffed punt away from a 38-0 shutout against the Gators, and even still, they\u2019ve held an SEC team to seven points or less for the first time since 2020. They\u2019re led by Cutter Boley, now just the second freshman quarterback at UK to win three starts since 1991, joining only Morgan Newton in 2009. Tennessee Tech is good, but it\u2019s still the OVC and, on paper, should be overwhelmed by Kentucky\u2019s talent. Vanderbilt needed overtime and a Heisman-level performance from Diego Pavia (377 passing yards, 112 rushing yards, four TDs) to beat a coachless Auburn team at home a week after Kentucky beat the Tigers on the road in regulation. And Louisville just threw its College Football Playoff dreams in the garbage with a home loss to four-loss California \u2014 the Cardinals look as beatable as ever. <\/p>\n

The way things are trending, the Wildcats are more likely to win out and finish 7-5 than they are to go 4-8 and 5-7. I have all of the confidence in the world for Stoops to mess that up, don\u2019t get me wrong, but with his back against the wall and his job guaranteed only on a week-by-week basis up to this point, he kept on swinging and gave himself a legitimate chance to salvage this. For all of the blame he deserves for tanking this program from the standard he set (and earned him top-10-paid-coach status) with bad player evaluation and complacency, he deserves equal credit for temporarily putting the flames out on this dumpster fire. It\u2019s far from over, but his players are fighting like hell for him and it\u2019s led to back-to-back SEC wins. Why not see how this thing finishes?<\/p>\n

Mark Stoops thanks fans for their patience<\/p>\n

The head ball coach was obviously proud of his players and staff for dominating the Gators, but maybe more so, he\u2019s grateful for Big Blue Nation and fans\u2019 patience as Stoops pushed back out from rock bottom. Losing 10 straight SEC home games sucks for everyone, but there they were, filling up Kroger Field late Saturday evening to help give Kentucky its best shot to end that streak. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly what the Cats did. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese folks sacrifice an awful lot,\u201d Stoops said of BBN. \u201cThey care and they continue to show up. We are going to need them to continue to do that.\u00a0 We always acknowledge it and appreciate them. They have to save money, they travel long distances.\u00a0 They show up week in and week out. I\u2019ve always acknowledged our responsibility to play well for them. \u2026 To play well, it was nice to get some rewards.\u00a0 We are close a lot, but that doesn\u2019t count when you are a fan or media. I understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Bush Hamdan, Brad White and the Cats recap a monster performance<\/p>\n

What did everyone else have to say about the blowout win? Hear from Kentucky\u2019s coordinators and four players.<\/p>\n

Bush Hamdan, Brad White<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Cutter Boley, Daveren Rayner, Ty Bryant and Joshua Braun <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

KSR\u2019s Rapid Reaction was a BLAST<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often you get to celebrate a win like this \u2014 especially at Kroger Field, as the numbers make clear. So the KSR crew is going to enjoy every second of it when they can, digging into all of the fun outside the stadium shortly after the game went final.<\/p>\n

Be giddy with us.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unbelievable highlights of the 31-point win<\/p>\n

After getting down 7-3 early thanks to an ugly muffed punt, it was all Kentucky the rest of the way, Boley throwing a couple of touchdowns and Dante Dowdell and Seth McGowan combining for 196 rushing yards and three scores in the 38-7 win.<\/p>\n

Enjoy the highlights on repeat this morning as you pour another cup of coffee.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A BIG Sunday for UK Athletics<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been fun celebrating the men\u2019s basketball win over Valparaiso and we\u2019re gonna keep celebrating the Florida win for football, but don\u2019t think things are slowing down anytime soon. In fact, Sunday has three big-time matchups to keep a close eye on \u2014 and KSR will be following along closely.<\/p>\n

First up, women\u2019s basketball vs. Buffalo at 2 p.m. ET, live on ESPN+. That\u2019s the Clara Strack homecoming game up in New York, the Wildcats looking to start the season 3-0.<\/p>\n

From there, No. 1 seed UK men\u2019s soccer takes on No. 8 Coastal Carolina in the 2025 Sun Belt Men\u2019s Soccer Championship, the start of the Wildcats\u2019 journey for a conference tournament title. Win that one, and they\u2019ll play again Wednesday in the semifinals, followed by the championship next Sunday. That starts at 3 p.m. ET, also on ESPN+.<\/p>\n

And then to wrap up, No. 2 Kentucky volleyball takes on No. 19 Tennessee inside Historic Memorial Coliseum at 5 p.m. ET, live on ESPN. One step closer to another SEC title under Craig Skinner.<\/p>\n

Stick around with us, folks. An unbelievable weekend for UK Athletics is only going to get better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a point midway through the fourth quarter where I looked down at the score and thought…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":367177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,177510,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-367176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-kentucky-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115520546170801487","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}