What beating Florida means for Kentucky football going forward

Kentucky football has downed the Florida Gators once again, but how much will that ultimately say about them from a competitive standpoint?

Being ranked in the top 10 isn’t something that is typically expected of Kentucky football, but that is nonetheless what the program has achieved after downing the Florida Gators in Gainesville, 26-16.

For context, the Gators were sitting pretty in the AP Top 25 poll at 12th after upsetting the previously 7th-ranked Utah Utes, and were looking to push their winning ways onto yet another ranked team as the Wildcats entered “The Swamp.”

Obviously, Kentucky football had a similar goal in mind for itself, but it had something else that was even better: the ability to actually achieve it.

While not exactly renowned for excellence within the world of college football, the university’s CFB program was coming off of a 2021 showing to remember, winning an outstanding 10 games (the last of which was over Iowa—a fellow 10-win team—in the Citrus Bowl).

The convincing win from last weekend proves that the power 2021 saw from Mark Stoops’s squad has gone nowhere. However, there is one problem that remains, and that is the question of how much this win over Florida will ultimately mean to Kentucky’s 2022 campaign.

What will the win over Florida mean for Kentucky Football?

The reasoning behind said question needing to be asked comes down to the fact that the Gators were most likely never top-12 material, and that they were ranked where they were solely due to a strong performance in their opener against a potentially overrated Pac-12 team.

Not only that, but when looking at what awaits Kentucky football between now and the end of its regular season, things are going to get dicier than a visit to an average divisional rival.

In other words, the last thing one should do is define the Wildcats solely by their win over Florida (especially with it still being so early in their slate). We will know more once they face off against some of the other big dogs that are on the horizon, as all of them are set to battle Kentucky in noteworthy parts of the season.

For starters, the Wildcats will have their October bookended by two brutal road games against ranked opponents, visiting Oxford to duke it out with Ole Miss before treading into Knoxville to tackle the Volunteers a few weeks later.

The Rebels will be Kentucky’s entrance into its stretch of league games, while the Tennessee meeting will be wedged between their only bye week and yet another road game to Missouri. The biggest test of them all will be even later in the year, though.

Just one Saturday before rivalry week, the Cats will have to welcome Georgia—the defending national champions—to Kroger Field. The Bulldogs have already returned to the top spot in the AP poll and will be looking to tear Kentucky apart right before its battle with in-state nemesis Louisville.

Those three games should give Kentucky tests just as strong as (if not stronger than) the one Florida gave them.

Considering the historical/recruiting mismatches—along with the fact that Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is never an easy place to play—UK downing the Gators is hardly a small feat. However, that game told us a lot about Florida’s place on the college football totem pole as well.

If the Wildcats can prove that this level of competitiveness will be sticking around all season long, then Kentucky football could be spending 2022 as one of the SEC’s mightiest powers.