Kentucky's Historic 10-Win Football Season By the Numbers

Kentucky ended the 2021 season with a 20-17 victory over Iowa in Citrus Bowl, capping off another impressive campaign by Mark Stoops. Before looking ahead to his tenth season at Kentucky, let’s examine some of the statistics that made his ninth Kentucky football team tick.

Significant Streaks

• Six straight bowl appearances is a school record.
• Four straight bowl wins is also a school record. Alabama is the only other FBS program currently on a four-game bowl win streak.
• Kentucky has won 16 straight non-conference games, the longest active streak in the FBS. The Wildcats’ last loss to a non-SEC opponent was one-point defeat to Northwestern in the 2017 Music City Bowl. Thanks, Louisville.

Offensive Transformation

Kentucky’s offense slowed to a crawl in 2020 without a dynamic passing attack. In the offseason Stoops hired Liam Coen to marry together the run and the pass. After one season, we’re still in the honeymoon phase. The numbers reinforce what anonymous SEC defensive coordinators are telling Bruce Feldman.

A few other random bits from convos with coaches for these stories. “I think Kentucky has the best scheme in the league. They had average talent beside the little slot who is scary as hell, and they gave you a lot of problems.” An SEC DC who thinks Liam Coen was a great hire.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) January 7, 2022

Stat	2020 (National, SEC Rank)	2021 (National, SEC Rank)	Improvement
Scoring Offense	21.8 ( 107th, 11th)	32.3 (35th, 5th)	10.5 points
Passing Offense	121.5 (122nd, 14th)	224.5 (73rd, 10th)	103 yards
Rushing Offense	196.55 (34th, 3rd)	199.54 (25th, 5th)	3 yards
Total Offense	318 (100th, 14th)	424.1 (50th, 8th)	106. 1 yards
Yards per Play	5.15 (95th, 12th)	6.4 (21st, 5th)	1.25 yards
Third Down %	36.62% (95th, 9th)	50.67% (5th, 2nd)	14.05%
Red Zone TD %	51.52% (106th, 14th)	72.2% (8th, 1st)	20.7%

Wan’Dale Robinson

Wan’Dale Robinson declared for the NFL Draft following his first and only season in Lexington. Things worked out well for the wide receiver at Kentucky, catching 104 passes or 1,334 yards and seven touchdowns.

• Robinson set UK single-season records for receptions and receiving yards. What’s even more remarkable is who he surpassed to break the record. Craig Yeast set the high bar by catching passes from a Heisman finalist in an Air Raid offense that SEC defenses had never seen before. Wan’Dale did it in the modern SEC, and somehow continued to improve throughout the year. Amazing.
• Robinson had 79 of UK’s 80 yards on the game-winning drive at Iowa. He accounted for 170 of Will Levis‘ 233 passing yards in the Citrus Bowl.
• Wan’Dale is one of only six players in SEC history to ever record more than 100 receptions in a season.
• He’s the only UK wide receiver to have three 160+ yard games in a career … and he did it in just one season. Wan’Dale sends his thoughts and prayers to Iowa, Tennessee and New Mexico State.
• Wan’Dale only played one season, yet ranks 17th in UK career receiving yards.

Chris Rodriguez

Chris Rodriguez concluded his fourth season in a Kentucky uniform with 1,379 rushing yards and nine touchdowns on 225 attempts. He also caught 13 passes for three scores, including one score each in the Citrus Bowl.

• Rodriguez finished just 21 yards shy of becoming the fifth player with a 1,400-yard rushing season in school history.
• If he returns for another year, Rodriguez can snap Benny Snell’s career rushing record with 1,134 yards.
• Rodriguez had 100+ rushing yards in nine games, setting a new single-season school record.
• In 417 career rushes, he has only been tackled for a loss 13 times. That means if you give Rodriguez the football, there’s a 97% chance he is not going backwards. Insane.

Matt Ruffolo

The best specialists are often overlooked for their play. You don’t notice them until they make a mistake. Punters and placekickers can be an exceptions to that rule, if they bomb punts inside the 10 or drill game-winners. Matt Ruffolo fell somewhere in-between. Many folks refused to forgive him for missing a PAT in overtime against Ole Miss in 2020. Meanwhile, he just kept banging balls through the uprights.

• Matt Ruffolo set a new UK school record in 2021 by making 54 extra points, surpassing the mark set by Lones Seiber in 2007 (51).
• Ruffolo made 81.3 percent of his field goals during his career (26 of 32), the third-highest percentage in school history. Not too shabby.

More Impressive Kentucky Football Stats

• Over the last four seasons Kentucky is 7-8 vs. ranked teams. It was 7-63 the previous 19 seasons.
• Kentucky now has four 10+ win seasons in school history, two in the last four years.
• Mark Stoops’ next win will tie Bear Bryant for the most wins by a head coach (60) in Kentucky football history.
• Will Levis directed three fourth quarter game-winning drives this season. Now top ten in school history, Andre Woodson leads the way with seven fourth quarter game-winning drives.
• Levis rushed and passed for 33 touchdowns in 2021, the fourth-most in school history. Woodson tops the list with 43 in 2007.
• Only three teams in SEC history have had a 1,300 yard rusher and 1,300 yard receiver: 2019 LSU (Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson/Clyde Edwards-Helaire), 2020 Alabama (DeVonta Smith/Najee Harris), and 2021 Kentucky (Robinson/Rodriguez).
• Kentucky held its final four opponents to 21 points or less for the first time since 1979.
• The Wildcats finished the season with a -11 turnover margin. Only five teams had a worse turnover margin this season and just one of those schools had a winning record (Liberty). UK is just the fourth 10-win team since 1991 with a turnover margin of -11 or worse.

Shout out to Corey Price, Matt May and the rest of the hard-working UK Sports Information Department for digging through the weeds to unveil many of these impressive numbers.