Mark Stoops emphatic that Kentucky is not overlooking Toledo for Ole Miss game

The 2025 Kentucky Football season is likely one of the most important in the career of head coach Mark Stoops, who is heading into his 12th season at the helm in Lexington. The SEC’s longest-tenured coach is coming off a disappointing 4-8 campaign and fan support has been wavering, unsure about the future of the Youngstown native.

After a tumultuous offseason in which the program brought in a plethora of new players while losing some of the program’s prior cornerstones in wide receivers Dane Key and Barion Brown, Kentucky‘s uber important 2025 campaign opens on Aug. 30 against Toledo. The Rockets are fresh off an 8-5 season with a 6OT win over Pittsburgh in the 2024 GameAbove Sports Bowl.

Stoops discussed not over-looking the week one clash with Toledo for a week two home clash with Ole Miss, which is likely to be ranked in the top-15 when the two teams meet.

“We’ve got a big game in week one,” Stoops said. “I’m not just saying that and it’s not coach speak. I think you all could recognize that [Toledo] is a team that’s been picked to win the MAC and is a very, very mature football team and well coached. So that’s going to be a big game and that’ll get us prepared. We have to be prepared for week one.”

ESPN has Kentucky on upset alert in game vs. Toledo

Kentucky hasn’t lost a home game to a non-conference team since 2016 (Southern Miss), but Toledo is likely the best non-con team the Wildcats have faced since then. Under head coach Jason Candle, the Rockets are 73-40 (since 2016) with two MAC titles and three bowl game victories.

ESPN tabbed this game as one of its 12 sneaky good games matching Power 4 teams against Group of 5 teams this season, putting the ‘Cats on upset alert. The two programs last met in 2019, where Kentucky held off Toledo 38-24 in its season opener. It was the one game that season that starting quarterback Terry Wilson started and finish, as he broke his collarbone in a week two game against Eastern Michigan.

As previously mentioned, Kentucky will then host Ole Miss the following week in a rematch from last season’s stunning Wildcat victory in Oxford. The ‘Cats haven’t started the regular season 2-0 with at least one SEC victory since it did it in back-to-back seasons in 2021 and 2022.