LEXINGTON, Ky. — Swimming against a mighty current of contrary opinion, I think the Southeastern Conference is making a mistake in potentially moving away from football divisions.
When Oklahoma and Texas begin competing in the SEC with the 2024 football season, it is widely expected that the conference will scrap its current breakdown between East and West.
In the run-up to the pending arrival of the Sooners and Longhorns, the SEC schools are locked in a polarizing debate on a new scheduling format. The lines are drawn between those who favor playing nine league games each season with three permanent opponents vs. those who want to stay at eight conference contests even if that means only playing one other league foe every season.
To me, the most sensible option would have been to put Oklahoma in the SEC East, Texas in the West and make the Sooners and Longhorns each other’s permanent cross-division foe. That approach would require adding a ninth conference game each season, but it would also maintain every existing annual SEC rivalry without interruption.
Preserving rivalries should be far more important than creating a scheduling formula that allows for more conference teams to rotate through each league stadium with greater frequency. Kentucky fans will not be winners if they wind up getting to see the Cats play Texas A&M and Arkansas more often if that comes at the expense of not playing border-rival Tennessee every year.
So if 2023 is to be the last season that the SEC East exists, it means UK football has one final shot to remove a blot from its historic résumé.
Since the SEC went to divisions in 1992, the Wildcats have never won the East. The closest the Cats have ever come to winning the division and advancing to the SEC championship game was 2018, when UK lost a winner-take-all game against Georgia on Nov. 3 of that year in which the victor was assured of being the division champ.
In 31 years, Kentucky has finished second in the East twice, been third three times, fourth six times, fifth 11 times, sixth seven times, and seventh twice.
During Mark Stoops’ 10 years as top Cat, Kentucky has been second in the East twice (2018 and 2021), third once (2017), fourth three times (2016, 2020 and 2022), fifth twice (2015 and 2019), sixth once (2014), and seventh once (2013).
Under Stoops, UK has finished fourth or better in the East in 60% of its seasons. Overall, Kentucky has finished fourth or better in its division 35.5% of the time.
Two programs, Florida (13) and Georgia (10), have combined to win 23 of the 31 SEC East Division crowns. Tennessee has won five East titles (but none since 2007), Missouri two and South Carolina one. Vanderbilt has also never won the East.
In the division era, Kentucky has never finished with a league record better than 5-3. The Cats have done that only twice, in 2018 and 2021. Only one time, South Carolina in 2010, has a team with three losses won the SEC East.
When relative SEC newcomer Missouri took the East with back-to-back conference records of 7-1 in 2013 and 2014, the Tigers caught Florida and Georgia when neither of the two East Division heavyweights were at their competitive zenith.
Florida went 3-5 in the league in 2013, while Georgia was 5-3. The following season, the Gators went 4-4 and the Bulldogs finished 6-2.
For Kentucky it has been bad luck that the Stoops era ascension in UK’s football fortunes has coincided with Kirby Smart building Georgia into a college football colossus.
In addition to beating UK head-to-head to claim the 2018 SEC East, the Dawgs went 8-0 in the conference in 2021, the other year when Kentucky finished second in the division.
If the coming college football season is the final one with an SEC East, is there any realistic hope the Wildcats can finally win it?
In North Carolina State transfer Devin Leary, UK will break in a new starting quarterback. A polished, proven college QB, Leary comes with one primary question: Can he stay healthy? In two of the seasons (2020 and 2022) in which Leary was the Wolfpack starting quarterback, he did not make it to the end of the year.
Kentucky will also feature two new starters at cornerback, both a new kicker and punter and, possibly, two new starting offensive tackles. If the players filling those positions come through, the Cats will put a better team on the field in 2023 than they did a season ago (7-6).
However, Georgia remains a problem. In 2023, the back-to-back national champion Bulldogs are the prohibitive favorite to win the East for the sixth time in seven seasons. Since 2009, the Cats have not beaten the Dawgs. UK has not even played Georgia within single digits since 2016.
Meanwhile, Kentucky’s rotating opponent from the opposite division in 2023 is traditional SEC West titan Alabama.
On paper, 2023 doesn’t shape up as a great opportunity for Kentucky to finally win the SEC East. If it ever is going to happen, however, it likely has to be now.
