Short-handed Louisville stuns Kentucky in another Governor's Cup blowout

Kentucky entered the final week of the 2025 regular season in a must-win situation. But what happens after a must-win game when you get blown out and never really looked competitive against your heated in-state rival? We’re about to find out.

The Wildcats came out flat and got ran over by a Louisville team that is currently decimated with offensive injuries. UK was destroyed at line of scrimmage and played extremely poorly in all three phases. That led to a consecutive humbling road loss.

Cards 41, Cats 0.

Where does the program go next? We should get an answer from the Kentucky administration fairly quickly. Before we all cross that bridge together, we’re recapping a consecutive embarrassing performance from this football program after throwing all of the momentum and goodwill during a three-game winning streak to start November down the drain.

UK has a losing record again. The Cats have now dropped consecutive games to Louisville. The program trend lines are concerning — and that may be putting it lightly.

Kentucky’s offensive road game woes will not go away

Remember the long two touchdowns or less streak that Kentucky finally snapped in the home game against Tennessee? Well, the bad scoring streaks aren’t completely dead yet. UK’s poor offensive production on the road only got worse on Saturday.

Opponent	Offensive points	Yards per play
Ole Miss (2024)	20	4.48
Florida (2024)	13	4.54
Tennessee (2024)	18	5.63
Texas (2024)	14	4.22
South Carolina (2025)	13	3.87
Georgia (2025)	14	4.22
Auburn (2025)	10	3.93
Vanderbilt (2025)	17	4.63
Louisville (2025)	0	2.77

Kentucky just had their worst offensive performance in years. Cutter Boley was sacked six times. When the redshirt freshman had time to throw, he completed 14-of-27 passes for 114 yards and two interceptions. The Cats lost starting tailback Seth McGowan early in the game. The rushing attack finished with under 100 yards for the second game in a row. Kentucky’s offensive line got soundly beat at the line of attack for the second game in a row.

Once again, this offense had no answers after things got sideways early in the game. In the biggest game of the season, we saw a disastrous performance from what had been a surging Kentucky offense in consecutive weeks to end the season.

Kentucky’s road game woes continued, and there is now some real doubt about this offense’s future in 2025 even with a talented young quarterback in place.

Kentucky’s defense was not much better

Kentucky has had some low defensive moments this season. Teams that could spread out and play tempo with a good vertical passing game were this team’s kryptonite all season. But teams that struggled to throw the ball vertically and played in a pro-style construct were the teams that UK had a ton of success went.

That totally went away on Saturday.

With a walk-on and a wide receiver at tailback, Louisville rushed for 214 yards on 5.1 yards per rush. Braxton Jennings and Shaun Boykins Jr. each went over the century mark. This came against what has been a very good run defense all season long. Meanwhile, a banged up and struggling quarterback (Miller Moss) complete 12-of-20 passes for 182 yards on 9.1 yards per attempt with three touchdown passes. UK simply had no answers.

One year after allowing Louisville to rush for 358 yards, the Cats allowed 258 rushing yards in the blowout loss. Kentucky was the team that used to dominate the line of scrimmage in this rivalry. That is a thing of the past now.

Kentucky’s defense was embarrassed by Louisville one week after being embarrassed by Vanderbilt. The Cats ended this season in very, very bad fashion.

Ugly special teams

Tennessee Tech and Vanderbilt nearly blocked punts against Kentucky over the last two weeks. Vandy had a kickoff return touchdown negated due to a holding call. UK was flirting with disaster in the third phase as the season came to an end.

Disaster finally arrived in Week 14.

A blocked punt led directly to a goal-to-go possession that allowed Louisville to take a 7-0 lead. Aidan Laros had a pair of punts that did not travel 35 yards. A solid Kendrick Law kickoff return was brought back to a holding call. Jacob Kauwe missed a 52-yard field goal.

The offense and defense was a disaster. So was the kicking game. Kentucky saved its ugliest football for the final week. This program will not be going bowling. All eyes now turn to Mitch Barnhart.