In Florida, UK again comes face-to-face with Mark Stoops’ ‘heartbreak team’

If Mark Stoops ever torments himself by reliving the most-agonizing defeats he has suffered as Kentucky head football coach, one thing is certain:

Florida blue and orange fills Stoops’ excruciating rehash.

Since Mitch Barnhart brought Stoops on board as UK head man before the 2013 season, Kentucky has been more-consistently competitive with Florida than at any time since the 1970s.

Five times under Stoops, Wildcats’ games with the Gators have not been decided until the final seconds.

Literally change four total plays, and Stoops could be taking a 5-3 record vs. Florida into UK’s showdown Saturday night at Kroger Field with the No. 10 Gators (3-1, 1-1 SEC).

Instead, Kentucky’s streak-busting 27-16 win at Florida in 2018 remains the Wildcats’ only victory in the series since 1986.

On Monday, at the UK coach’s weekly news conference at Kroger Field, I asked Stoops whether the 2021 Wildcats (4-0, 2-0 SEC) can derive any confidence from Kentucky having recently played Florida tough — even though the Cats have so little to show for it on the bottom line.

“We are not into moral victories. I think our players know that we can play with anybody if we play well,” Stoops said. “That’s the point we have gotten to as a program.”

After starting 12-26 as UK head man, Stoops has subsequently gone 41-24. By Kentucky standards, that is strong work.

Yet how much better would perceptions of the UK football program be if one play from each of Kentucky’s four near-misses against the Gators since 2014 could be reversed:

▪ 2014. Florida’s 36-30 triple-overtime victory over Kentucky in The Swamp was extended in the first overtime when Gators quarterback Jeff Driskel hit Demarcus Robinson for a 9-yard touchdown pass on a fourth-and-7 play where the play clock appeared to have reached zero before the ball was snapped.

Whether Florida could have converted on fourth-and-12 had the delay-of-game call been made is eternally unknowable.

▪ 2015. On Kentucky’s fourth offensive play from scrimmage, UK quarterback Patrick Towles lofted a 41-yard pass to a wide-open Dorian Baker in the Gators’ end zone.

The ball went through Baker’s hands and fell to the turf.

Kentucky went on to lose 14-9.

▪ 2017. UK took a 27-14 lead early in the fourth quarter only to lose 28-27 in maddening fashion.

Amazingly, Kentucky surrendered not one, but two Florida touchdown passes to Gators receivers who were left uncovered at the snap of the ball. The second of those “free TDs” came with the Gators down 27-21 and facing third-and-1 from the UK 5.

On the decisive play, Kentucky got caught trying to change personnel and wound up with 10 men on the field. The missing Cat was the cornerback who should have been defending wide receiver Freddie Swain.

The all-by-himself Swain caught a 5-yard scoring pass from quarterback Luke Del Rio with 43 seconds left.

▪ 2019. After blowing a 21-10 fourth-quarter lead, Kentucky trailed 22-21 but still had a chance to possibly win when Chance Poore lined up to attempt a 35-yard field goal with 54 seconds remaining in the game.

It missed.

Florida then tacked on an insurance score for a 29-21 win.

Kentucky, having lost to Florida by five, one and eight points in the last three meetings in Lexington, is past due to get one against the Gators in front of the home folks.

To make that happen in 2021, Stoops says the Wildcats “have to control what we can and execute at the highest level. Then, maybe you need a bounce here or a bounce there. Sometimes you need the ball to bounce your way.”

In the view of the Kentucky camp, one other thread has run through the Wildcats’ wrenching, recent losses to Florida: A really tough, late-game officiating whistle.

It started with the non-call on the possible delay of game on Florida’s game-tying touchdown at the end of the first overtime in 2014’s triple-overtime loss.

Three years later, after Florida scored to take the lead with 43 seconds left, quarterback Stephen Johnson drove UK into field-goal range at the Gators’ 35. A subsequent Benny Snell run for 10 yards moved Kentucky even closer.

However, Snell’s gain was negated by a holding call on UK guard Nick Haynes.

That forced Austin MacGinnis into a 57-yard field-goal attempt, which he missed.

On what became Florida’s game-winning drive in 2019, Kentucky defensive end T.J. Carter came in low and sacked Florida quarterback Kyle Trask for what appeared to be a crucial loss.

Just before the UK defender was set to hit the Florida QB in the legs, however, Trask dropped his head — and Carter hit his helmet.

Kentucky was called for a tough-luck targeting penalty. Three plays later, Florida scored the game-winning TD.

That’s why, in addition to playing well and getting a kind bounce of the ball, Stoops — with a literal wink — listed getting “a call at the end of the game” as another key for Kentucky to at last get over the hump and beat Florida in Lexington.

“I winked at you,” the UK coach said, laughingly but pointedly.