Kentucky 2026 Football Schedule Unveiled

It’s a long way until Football Time in the Bluegrass returns, but we now know exactly when, where, and who the Kentucky Wildcats will play in 2026.

Will Stein will open his tenure as the Kentucky head football coach on Labor Day weekend against Youngstown State. After the Cats play the Penguins, things get significantly more difficult for the first-year head coach.

The 2026 SEC football season will be the first where every team plays nine conference opponents. With a season-finale at home against in-state rival Louisville, that means the Wildcats will play five of those SEC games away from Kroger Field. That includes a pair of teams in this year’s College Football Playoff, Texas A&M and Oklahoma. The Wildcats have not played in Norman since 1980, the program’s only ever road trip to Oklahoma.

In addition to the former Big 12 foes, Kentucky will also host Alabama in Stein’s first SEC contest. The Crimson Tide appeared in the SEC Championship Game in Kalen DeBoer‘s second season. They’ll face Oklahoma next weekend in the first round of the College Football Playoff.

Kentucky lost Georgia from the schedule, but the Cats are still playing at Tennessee. They will also host a former Wildcat, Jon Sumrall, when he brings his Florida Gators to Kroger Field on Nov. 14. That might not draw as many fireworks as the traveling road show that Lane Kiffin and LSU are bringing to town.

Oh, and there’s one other thing to consider. For two straight seasons, an unusual hitch in the calendar gave every college football team two bye weeks. That is reduced to only one bye week in 2026. Adding an SEC game and removing a bye? As Mark Stoops once said, “This shit’s hard.”

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2026 Kentucky Football Schedule

9/05: Youngstown State
9/12: Alabama
9/19: at Texas A&M
09/26: South Alabama
10/3: at South Carolina
10/10: LSU
10/17: at Oklahoma
10:24: Vanderbilt
10/31: BYE
11/7: at Tennessee
11/14: Florida
11/21: at Missouri
11/28: Louisville

The 2026 SEC football schedule is HERE 🚨 pic.twitter.com/uGwDs5yHrA

— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) December 12, 2025

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