By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Kentucky has turned the corner in its series with Florida and will look to keep the rare winning streak alive Saturday in Gainesville.
The Wildcats (3-3, 1-2 Southeastern Conference) lost 19 straight to Florida from 1981-2018, but have flipped the proverbial switch and have captured three straight victories, including a 33-17 last season.
In the past four games between the rivals, Kentucky has limited the Gators to less than 20 points, while using a solid ground game to accumulate success. Florida will celebrate homecoming and honor its 1984 squad that won the program’s first SEC championship.
“We have a big challenge going on the road, playing in The Swamp and playing a Florida team that is getting better and better and playing extremely hard, and is always very loaded with very good players,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “… It’s a very prideful program and coach (Billy) Napier will have his team ready and I need to do the same. So, we got to regroup in a hurry and get right back at it and get back to work and find some solutions.”
In its last road game, the first of the year, the Wildcats stunned Ole Miss on its homecoming, but dropped a disappointing 20-13 loss to Vanderbilt coming off an open date last week. Stoops said earlier this week he is confident the Wildcats will respond positively to adversity.
“We played before and made some mistakes and responded in a positive way and hopefully with this game (we will respond),” Stoops said. “it’s one game. It’s a very tough league this year, it’s a very balanced league this year, it’s brutally tough. There’s going to be two teams playing Saturday that desperately want to win. So it’ll be a great challenge, it’ll be a great game.”
Kentucky’s main emphasis will be finishing drives, an issue that has plagued the Wildcats in each of their three losses this season.
“We’ve got to finish drives, that’s the frustrating part of it,” Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “I think you look at every game we’ve played this year from yardage, first downs, moving the ball, and on and on and on. From the standpoint of finishing, it just hasn’t occurred.”
Florida is coming off a 23-17 overtime loss at No. 11 Tennessee. The narrow setback provided a glimpse of hope for Napier, who is 14-17 in three seasons as coach of the Gators.
Napier said earlier this week he doesn’t “have any control over that” regarding his future on the sidelines in Gainesville.
“I think one of the most important things that we can do when put in these positions and having these great opportunities is focus on doing the best job you can do for your players and your staff,” he said. “You get into the season, you’ve got to hit the reset button and it is literally, you are in the moment, present and focused on the task at hand.”
Gametracker: Kentucky at Florida, 7:45 p.m. TV/Radio: SEC Network, UK Radio Network.