Flashback: Kentucky vs. Vanderbilt

Well. Last week could have been better. Kentucky had a good shot to play with Missouri and keep the ballgame close — and they had the opportunities early to make it interesting — but the Cats just whiffed. After an opening drive score, Kentucky struggled to get any momentum; meanwhile the Tigers rolled. To make matters worse, we didn’t even see starting quarterback James Franklin who could have easily added more points by simply being on the field. Things really couldn’t have gone worse last week, and now the Cats have to face a resurgent Vanderbilt football team that is coming off an impressive upset of Florida at the Swamp.

LAST MATCHUP

A season ago Vanderbilt was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Joker Phillips at Kentucky. There were innumerable examples of why Joker’s time at Kentucky was up in the games prior, but the 40-0 dismantling by the Commodores gave Mitch Barnhart, just a day later, all the motivation he needed to announce to the Big Blue Nation via an open letter that the football program was going to officially move on.

Vanderbilt dominated on offense, on defense, and on special teams to cruise from a 27-point halftime lead to a 40-point blowout. When you lose that bad to the team that is supposed to always be beneath you, things are bad. At the time, the Commodores were 5-4 and looking to earn their sixth win for bowl eligibility. They put it away early with five touchdowns on their first six possessions, while Kentucky never moved the ball more than 36 yards on a drive after their first possession which resulted in a missed field goal.

Vandy was led by quarterback Jordan Rodgers, who completed 18 passes for 220 yards, and running backs Brian Kimbrow, Zac Stacy, Wesley Tate, and Warren Norman who rushed for 217 yards. The ‘Dores defense held UK to 5-of-17 on third down and forced two turnovers. Patrick Towles threw for 93 yards on a miserable 26 percent completion rate.

SERIES OVERVIEW

This series began way back in 1896 when the two teams first played on October 10 — it resulted in a 6-0 Vandy victory. The Commodores would win the next 15 meetings outside of a 0-0 tie in 1919, until the Wildcats found the win column in 1939 for the first time in a 21-13 victory.

UK and VU would play semi-regularly through the 40s and into the 50s exchanging wins and losses before the series became annual in 1953, and the teams have played every year since. In the time the series became regular in the SEC, Kentucky leads 38-20-1 while the all-time series record is 41-40-4, meaning Vandy could push the series record to .500 with a win this weekend.

The average score in the last 59 meetings of the modern era is very close, just 19.3 — 17.3 in favor of Kentucky. Obviously Vandy gets a huge boost for the last two games of the 2010s when the Commodores have outscored UK 32.7 — 15.3.

ALL-TIME GREATS

Jay Cutler (VU, 2002-05) — One of the most prolific football prospects to come out of Nashville is quarterback Jay Cutler. He was a 1st-round pick in the NFL Draft in 2006 and made a name for himself in Denver before becoming the Chicago Bears quarterback in 2009. He has plenty of critics that say he isn’t cut out mentally for the job, but his five-year $50 million contract begs to differ.

Regardless, in his four years at Vandy Cutler piled up the yards on UK despite winning just one game. His freshman year pitted him against Jared Lorenzen, and Cutler won this head-to-head battle as the Cats stuck primarily to the ground game. He threw for 176 yards and two touchdowns in a 41-21 loss. Next year Cutler out-did Lorenzen and Vandy pulled off the upset as he threw for 175 yards and four touchdowns while rushing for 126 yards.

He was tamed in his junior-season matchup against the Cats as he threw for 202 but was held to just one touchdown pass as Shane Boyd led the Wildcats to a 14-13 come-from-behind victory. Finally, in his senior season, Cutler went all out completing 39 of his 66 attempts for 395 yards and a whopping five touchdowns, all five of which went to his current Bears teammate Earl Bennett. Vandy piled up more than 500 yards of offense, but the Cats somehow escaped with a narrow victory.

BIGGEST MOMENT FOR UK

A 38-26 Wildcats win in 2006 might not seem like a big deal just looking at the final score. But consider what it means to the program. This victory was the sixth of the season, which made UK bowl eligible for the first time since 1999. Rich Brooks had resurrected a completely lifeless program and turned it into a winner. Andre Woodson headlined the charge and Rafael Little was right behind him. This started a chain reaction of five straight bowl appearances — an unprecedented feat in UK football history.

Woodson tossed for 450 yards and four touchdowns in the game and Little rushed for 132 and a score, including the go-ahead touchdown in the 4th quarter that put an end in sight to not only the game, but the bowl game drought. The ’06 Kentucky team will always be memorable for turning the Kentucky football program around, but the game that sealed the deal was this early November contest against Vanderbilt.

TRENDS

It is astounding what James Franklin has been able to build in Nashville in just a few short years. He took over a 2-10 team and guided them to a bowl, took that six-win bowl team and turned it into nine wins. And now Franklin has his team one win away from another bowl. For years Vandy was always the doormat of the conference, but not anymore. The Commodores simply aren’t just an academic school and Mark Stoops has a pretty good sized hill to climb to surpass the ‘Dores in the SEC. If nothing else, Franklin is a model for how Kentucky can (and will) build a respectable football team with Stoops leading the way.

@StuartHammerKSR