Kentucky Football is now in the home stretch of the regular season, and their latest test will come against Jon Sumrall and the Florida Gators on Saturday. Kickoff is set for 6:15 PM ET on ESPN.
Kentucky is coming off a humbling defeat last week on the road at Tennessee. The trip to Knoxville gave the Wildcats their second loss of the year and a drop in the College Football Playoff rankings.
Will Stein’s Wildcats are now ranked No. 11 in the College Football Playoff rankings, which makes one point
clear: Win, and you’re in. Kentucky has only three games left this season, and if they win them, they will find themselves in the bracket, playing for a National Championship in year one of the Will Stein era.
It’s great to think about the postseason and how Big Blue Nation would feel about Stein making such a splash in year one, but business comes first. Stein always talks about one play at a time. In this instance, one game at a time.
The next game is against a Florida team with a lot of ties. Over the last few years, as he made his way up the coaching ranks, Kentucky fans were begging to have Jon Sumrall be the successor when Mark Stoops calls it a career in Lexington.
Sumrall played at Kentucky and spent years on the sidelines in various coaching roles, primarily as an inside linebacker coach. Well, Sumrall made his climb quickly, and the timeline lined up to where it could potentially happen, but it didn’t.
Florida would have a head-coaching vacancy to fill, and, other than Lane Kiffin, Sumrall was the one guy they had in mind for the job. Sumrall took the job, and after Stoops was let go of his duties, his defensive coordinator, Brad White, took the same role under Sumrall in Gainesville.
As for connections on the other side, Kentucky defensive backs Aaron Gates and Jordan Castell both played at Florida before transferring to play at Kentucky under new defensive coordinator Jay Bateman, who also spent a couple of seasons under the last regime at Florida.
Now, all those connections in this game create a ton of motivation on both sides to win, as if an SEC game wasn’t enough already.
After the brutal, ready-to-forget night in Knoxville last weekend, Kentucky enters this contest as a field-goal favorite over the Gators. After years and years of losing to Florida, Stoops flipped the script toward the end of his time at the helm at Kentucky, winning four of the last five against them before he was let go.
Florida has been struggling in the last few weeks, but has shown the ability to dominate teams at times, so Kentucky will have to be locked in with the old SEC East rival coming to town.
To start the year, the Gators started 4-0, ranked as high as No. 8, and had everyone believing Florida football is back. That talk came to a screeching halt when Florida took back-to-back losses to Missouri and South Carolina. Since then, the Gators won at Texas before dropping two straight against Georgia and Oklahoma.
Kentucky has a chance to get back on track with a win and make it three straight losses for Sumrall’s Gators. There will be some things the Wildcats must watch for.
Contain Jadan Baugh
Florida is 5-0 when Baugh gets 90+ rushing yards, so the Kentucky defense must corral him and bring him down early. When he doesn’t get close to that mark, they’ve been blown out and beaten handily. Kentucky has to be able to contain him on early downs and force Florida into more passing situations.
The other thing of note is that in Florida’s losses, Baugh hasn’t even really had that many touches in the game. That’s an indication that the Gator offense is playing from behind and in throwing situations, and they haven’t necessarily performed well in those circumstances.
Disrupt the Quarterback
Quarterbacks, I should say, with the Florida offense having two quarterbacks who have played a lot this year, Aaron Philo and Tramell Jones Jr. Philo was the starter at the beginning of the year, but was replaced by Jones for the Texas game, and he led the Gators to a victory over Texas. Since then, he hasn’t been bad, but he hasn’t been great either, leaving it up in the air whether he keeps his starting role.
Florida has since decided that Philo will get the starting nod this week, but Kentucky should be fully prepared to see both of them. But no matter who plays for Florida, Kentucky has to disrupt them and keep them from getting comfortable. A common theme between the two is turnovers and sacks. Each has been sacked 8 times this year, and both have 5 interceptions.
Key Players
QB Tramell Jones Jr., 6’0, 196 lbs
712 passing yards
4 TDs – 5 INTs
QB Aaron Philo, 6’1, 207 lbs
1,367 passing yards
9 TDs – 5 INTs
RB Jadan Baugh, 6’1, 225 lbs
836 yards (17th nationally)
160 carries
14 TDs (6th nationally)
WR Dallas Wilson, 6’3, 212 lbs
465 receiving yards
35 receptions
3 TDs
WR Bailey Stockton, 5’10, 183 lbs
373 receiving yards
36 receptions
2 TDs
Kentucky Football vs. Florida Gators
Game Time: 6:15 PM EST on November 14, 2026
Location: Kroger Field in Lexington, Kentucky
TV Channel: ESPN will have coverage for this game.
Announcers: Joe Tessitore, Jesse Palmer, and Kris Budden will be on the call.
Online Stream: Watch ESPN and the ESPN app.
Radio: Tom Leach and Jeff Piecoro have the UK radio call on the UK Sports Network.
Satellite Radio: XM Channel 203, Sirius Channel 98, Internet Channel 966
Replay: Watch ESPN and SEC Network (check local listings).
Rosters: Kentucky | Florida
Stats to Know: Kentucky | Florida
Advanced Stats
Weather.com Forecast: Partly cloudy in the mid-40s around kickoff
Odds: FanDuel Sportsbook has Kentucky listed as 3.5-point favorites, with a point total of 52.5. ESPN has the Wildcats as a slight favorite, giving them a 53.8% win probability.
Predictions: Games On Paper picks Kentucky to win by six points. TeamRankings has the Cats winning 28-25. Mark Story of the Lexington Herald-Leader picks Kentucky to win 29-28. Pick Watch, which rounds up predictions from across the internet, has Kentucky earning 85% of the picks
That said, this team has a chance to get off the mat after a rough trip to Tennessee, and get back on track with a win over Florida… and I think they do it. I will go with a 34-20 victory, Kentucky!
Send us your score predictions in the comments section!
And Go Cats!!
