If you peruse the Florida pregame notes package previewing the No. 12 Gators’ SEC East showdown Saturday night against No. 20 Kentucky, you find an interesting nugget.
The UF packet notes that, since Mark Stoops became the UK football coach in 2013, the Gators have outscored the Wildcats by a combined 81 points, 239-158.
That may not quite fit the famous category of lies, damn lies and statistics, but it is a case where a factually accurate statement nevertheless leaves a misleading impression.
Under Stoops, Kentucky has been more consistently competitive with Florida than at any time since Fran Curci scored four victories over the Gators between 1974 and 1979.
In the Stoops era, two Florida blowouts of UK, 45-7 in 2016 and 34-10 in 2020, are the source of 62 of the Gators 81-point cumulative margin.
Otherwise, Kentucky has beaten Florida twice under Stoops — and four of the other five Gators wins in the series have come via one-score games by margins of one, five, six (in triple overtime) and eight points.
That UK has had a viable chance to win in six of its last nine meetings against Florida — the team that beat the Wildcats 31 straight from 1987 through 2017 — is a tangible sign of program progress.
Yet as UK (1-0, 0-0 SEC) prepares to travel to Gainesville to face new Florida coach Billy Napier and the Gators (1-0, 0-0 SEC), it is also true that the Wildcats’ inability to take full advantage of the opportunities that have been there to beat UF in recent years ranks as one of the great frustrations of the Stoops coaching era.
It is not a stretch to say that if you changed the outcome of only four plays, Stoops could be headed to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium this weekend with a 6-3 record against Florida instead of 2-7.
Consider:
— 2014. Florida’s 36-30 triple-overtime victory over Kentucky in The Swamp was extended in the first overtime when Gators quarterback Jeff Driskel hit Demarcus Robinson for a 9-yard touchdown pass on a fourth-and-7 play where the play clock appeared to have reached zero before the ball was snapped.
Whether Florida would have similarly converted on fourth-and-12 had the delay-of-game call been made is eternally unknowable.
— 2015. On Kentucky’s fourth offensive play from scrimmage, UK quarterback Patrick Towles lofted a 41-yard pass to a wide-open Dorian Baker in the Gators’ end zone.
The ball went through Baker’s hands and fell to the turf.
Kentucky went on to lose 14-9.
—2017. UK took a 27-14 lead early in the fourth quarter only to lose 28-27 in maddening fashion.
Amazingly, Kentucky surrendered not one, but two Florida touchdown passes to Gators receivers who were left uncovered at the snap of the ball. The second of those “free TDs” came with the Gators down 27-21 and facing third-and-1 from the UK 5.
On the decisive play, Kentucky got caught trying to change personnel and wound up with 10 men on the field. The missing Cat was the cornerback who should have been defending wide receiver Freddie Swain.
The all-by-his-lonesome Swain caught a 5-yard scoring pass from quarterback Luke Del Rio with 43 seconds left.
To make the loss cut even more, Kentucky quarterback Stephen Johnson subsequently drove UK into field-goal range at the Gators’ 35. A Benny Snell run for 10 yards moved Kentucky even closer.
However, Snell’s gain was negated by a holding call that the UK camp thought was questionable on Wildcats guard Nick Haynes.
That forced Austin MacGinnis into a 57-yard field-goal attempt, which he missed.
— 2019. After blowing a 21-10 fourth-quarter lead, Kentucky trailed 22-21 but still had a chance to potentially win when Chance Poore lined up to attempt a 35-yard field goal with 54 seconds remaining in the game.
It missed.
Florida then tacked on an insurance score for a 29-21 win.
As Kentucky head coach, Stoops is 1-4 vs. Florida in games decided by eight points or fewer — and is 24-12 vs. everybody else in such games.
During UK’s six-game bowl streak that began in 2016, Florida has gone 49-27, 30-20 in SEC games; Kentucky is 48-29, 25-25 in the league.
When Stoops talks about “wanting more” for the UK program than what has already been achieved, that will almost certainly have to involve more-frequent beating of longtime Kentucky football nemeses Florida and Tennessee.
(That is, unless the SEC football scheduling format changes so dramatically once Oklahoma and Texas enter the league — which will happen no later than 2025 — that UK is no longer playing the Gators and Volunteers on an annual basis afterward. That scenario would stink, but seems highly possible).
On Saturday night, Kentucky will seek to defeat Florida in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1976 and 1977.
The Wildcats will also attempt to give Stoops (60-53 since 2013) the victory that moves him past Paul “Bear” Bryant (60-23-5 from 1946-53) as UK’s all-time football coaching wins leader.
Given the heartache that Stoops has endured vs. Florida, one suspects there is no opponent he would rather beat to set the UK all-time victories record.
