Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 20-13 win over No. 10 Florida at Kroger Field:
1. Five-and-oh, baby. The upset of Florida pushes Kentucky to 5-0 overall, 3-0 SEC.
Since World War II, this is only the sixth time a UK football team has started a season with five straight wins: 1949, 1950, 1984, 2007, 2018 and now 2021.
Going back to the final two games of last season, Kentucky has now won seven games in a row. A UK team last did that in 1977, when Fran Curci’s Cats won their final nine games en route to a 10-1 season.
2. Josh Paschal played the game of his life. The Kentucky senior defensive end was almost unblockable.
Paschal recorded seven tackles, four of them solo, and had 2.5 tackles for loss.
It was a blocked field goal by Paschal that turned the momentum of the game. Florida was leading 10-7 when Jace Christmann lined up for a 48-yard field-goal attempt.
Paschal blocked the kick, and Kentucky freshman linebacker Trevin Wallace — a star running back in high school — returned it 76 yards for a touchdown with 6:36 left in the third quarter.
3. Salute the UK linebackers. The UK linebacking corps stood tall.
Continuing his trend of big plays in the clutch, middle linebacker Jacquez Jones was the final-play hero when he batted down an Emory Jones pass on fourth-and-goal from the UK 8 with 22 seconds left in the game Jones finished with nine tackles and a tackle for loss, too.
Weakside linebacker DeAndre Square had a team-high 13 tackles.
Outside linebacker/rush end J.J. Weaver set up Kentucky’s final touchdown with an interception with 13:45 left in the game.
Add on Wallace’s TD off the blocked field goal, it was an epic performance for the linebackers.
4. A breakthrough win for Mark Stoops. The victory over No. 10 Florida was the first for the Kentucky head coach over a team ranked in the top 10 of the AP Top 25 poll. Stoops is now 1-13 against top-10 teams.
However, Stoops is also now 8-19 vs. Top 25 teams as UK head man. After losing his first eight meetings with Top 25 foes, Stoops has gone 8-11 since the start of the 2015 season.
One more win over a ranked team would allow Stoops to tie Bear Bryant (9-10-2 from 1946-1953) and Fran Curci (9-19-1 from 1973-81) for the most such coaching victories in Kentucky football history.
Kentucky’s victory was its first in Lexington over Florida since a 10-3 win in 1986, a stretch of 16 straight home defeats.
UK now has home victories over every SEC East foe but Georgia since 2017: Florida (most recent UK home win against in 2021); Georgia (2006); Missouri (2021); South Carolina (2020); Tennessee (2017); and Vanderbilt (2020).
5. The fans deserve to take a bow. The Kroger Field crowd of 61,632 was one of the most electric I ever remember at a UK home game.
Loud from start to finish, the Kentucky crowd may have played a role in Florida committing a whopping eight illegal procedure penalties.
For the game, Florida committed 15 penalties for 115 yards.
Fashion police
For its first contest against a ranked foe in 2021, Kentucky wore blue helmets with blue jerseys with white numbers and letters and blue pants.
Since the start of the 2017 season, UK is 6-1 when it wears all blue.