Kentucky has struggled in games off the bye under Mark Stoops

For the fourth time this season, Kentucky will play a ranked opponent in SEC play on Saturday night when the Cats travel to Knoxville to lock horns with No. 3 Tennessee. Kentucky is a betting underdog for the fourth time this season and is looking to improve their against-the-spread (ATS) record to 4-0 during this run.

Only this time, Kentucky has extra preparation time before facing the Vols who have a monster clash with No. 1 Georgia looming next week. The Cats got to play idle last Saturday as Week 8 was a bye for the Big Blue. So now feels like a good time to take a look back at the results for Mark Stoops and Kentucky after the bye week.

They are not great.

Bye week review

Thanks to the 2013, 2014, and 2019 seasons getting multiple bye weeks due to how the calendar worked out that year, Kentucky has had 12 total bye weeks during the Mark Stoops era. In each of them, a power conference game followed with 11 coming against SEC foes. Kentucky has been a betting favorite in a handful of these matchups.

Both the results outright (5-7) and ATS (3-9) have not been great.

• 2013: Kentucky (+11) vs. No. 20 Florida — Lost 24-7
• 2013: Kentucky (+11) at Mississippi State — Lost 22-28
• 2014: Kentucky (-17) vs. Vanderbilt — Won 17-7
• 2014: Kentucky (+12) at No. 24 Louisville — Lost 44-40
• 2015: Kentucky (+1) vs. Auburn — Lost 30-27
• 2016: Kentucky (+4) vs. Mississippi State — Won 40-38
• 2017: Kentucky (+12) at Mississippi State — Lost 45-7
• 2018: No. 14 Kentucky (-11) vs. Vanderbilt — Won 14-7
• 2019: Kentucky (-7) vs. Arkansas — Won 24-20
• 2019: Kentucky (-1) vs. Tennessee — Lost 17-13
• 2020: Kentucky (-17) vs. Vanderbilt — Won 38-35
• 2021: No. 12 Kentucky (PK) at Mississippi State — Lost 31-17

Over the last five seasons, Kentucky has been expected to win every game off the bye with most of these games occurring at Kroger Field. The Cats have won when expected more times than not, but usually, the games have gotten somewhat ugly. Kentucky will head to Neyland Stadium with an 0-6 ATS mark in their last six games off of a bye.

Always best as an underdog

Kentucky will enter Saturday’s contest with Tennessee as an underdog again. However, the favorite hasn’t covered in this series since 2015 and the road team has a 6-1 ATS mark since 2015. The Cats are also their best as a dog.

Dating back to mid-2019, Kentucky is 11-2-1 ATS as a dog with seven outright victories. That includes two outright upsets this year over Florida and Mississippi State. Since 2018, the Cats have pulled off four upsets as a dog of a touchdown or more.

Off of the bye, all three covers have come as an underdog. The last time we saw UK face a ranked team on the road after the idle week, the Cats very much had Louisville on the ropes with a great chance to win the game in the fourth quarter. In their current ATS skid, Kentucky has not been an underdog since 2017.

The bye week trends aren’t great heading into Saturday, but recent history tells us that the Cats perform their best as a dog and might just be ready to turn in their best performance of the season on Saturday.