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Gameday: No. 12 Vanderbilt 45, Kentucky 17
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt football game in Nashville, Tennessee.
Nashville, Tenn.
The Mark Stoops era at Kentucky began in large part due to a 40-point loss to Vanderbilt.
It probably won’t end immediately because of another blowout defeat at the hands of the Commodores on Saturday, but the decision facing Kentucky’s administration at the end of the season certainly became more difficult because of the 45-17 loss.
“Really tough game, obviously,” Stoops said. “Very discouraging performance by us. Not very good. I have to credit them. That’s a very good football team in all areas, very physical, a team that’s definitely worthy of being in the playoffs with a quarterback that is something else.”
The margin of victory for Vanderbilt was its largest in the series since the Commodores beat Kentucky 40-0 in front of one of the smallest crowds in Kroger Field history in 2012. UK coach Joker Phillips was fired the next day, paving the way for Stoops to be hired a few weeks later.
Stoops led Kentucky to one of its best runs ever with eight straight bowl appearances from 2016 to 2023. The beginning of that streak coincided with a six-game winning streak versus Vanderbilt.
But a downturn in form for Stoops at Kentucky started with a 2022 home loss to the Commodores, which snapped Vanderbilt’s 26-game SEC losing streak. Vanderbilt has now won three of the past four games in the series.
Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia (2) runs past Kentucky defensive back Cam Dooley (18) during Saturday’s game at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. Ryan C. Hermens [email protected]
Before Saturday those games were still close, though.
This game wasn’t even as close as the final score indicated considering Vanderbilt led 45-3 at the end of three quarters. Kentucky passed for 203 yards in fourth-quarter garbage time after throwing for just 77 to that point. The Wildcats rushed for just 31 total yards.
Now, Vanderbilt has hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff. Its quarterback, Diego Pavia, has a chance to be named a Heisman Trophy finalist.
Meanwhile, Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart is left to answer whether the Wildcats can succeed if the gap between UK and its fellow traditional SEC cellar dweller has grown this large so quickly. Barnhart told the Herald-Leader earlier this month he will meet with Stoops to discuss the program’s future at the end of the season, as usual.
“This is one year, one game,” Stoops said. “… I mean, things change very quickly, and we have to do a better job. Credit them. It’s one week and one game, and we’ll regroup.”
Kentucky’s season was left for dead after a blowout loss to Tennessee a month ago, but the Wildcats responded with three straight wins over Auburn, Florida and Tennessee Tech. Those performances included an improbable offensive resurgence built around schematic changes that allowed redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley to get the ball out of his hands quickly.
But none of that progress was on display in Nashville.
Kentucky’s offense totaled just 102 yards in the first three quarters. Offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan’s plan to use a faster tempo never materialized because Kentucky could not get the first downs needed to play faster. UK’s defense, playing without four normal starters and three of its four top cornerbacks, surrendered a 71-yard touchdown pass on the second Vanderbilt drive and offered little resistance from there.
Pavia broke Vanderbilt’s single-game passing record with 484 yards and five touchdowns. He also rushed for a score.
Instead of providing more hope that he could be the type of star quarterback that could change a program’s fate the way Pavia has for Vanderbilt, Boley looked overmatched.
“Am I confident that they’re going to bounce back? Yes,” defensive coordinator Brad White said. “Do I think they have character? Yes. But we got to play better. It doesn’t matter how I feel. They actually have to go do it. We have to do it as a staff.”
Stoops and company can still salvage something from the season by beating archrival Louisville — which suffered its own embarrassing blowout Saturday, 38-6 at SMU — to reach bowl eligibility in the regular-season finale. But even a win in that game might not change the perception of Kentucky’s season now.
UK’s five wins have come against an FCS program, two Mid-American Conference teams and two SEC squads that have fired their coaches. Given the chance to prove its recent progress could translate to a game against a ranked opponent Saturday, Kentucky folded.
UK has fallen down by 40 points in a game just five times in Stoops’ 13 seasons as head coach. The four times that happened before Saturday came against traditional SEC powers Alabama (2013, 2020), Georgia (2013) and Florida (2016). Three of the four games came before Stoops turned the program around midway through the 2016 season. The other came in the pandemic-altered 2020 season, when Kentucky’s depth chart was decimated by positive COVID-19 tests and contact tracing.
Trailing Vanderbilt by 40 as the Commodores looked for style points to help boost their standing in the eyes of the College Football Playoff committee and Pavia’s Heisman Trophy candidacy feels like a different type of failure altogether.
Stoops has built his legacy at Kentucky by fighting back after being counted out. It looked like he was doing that again this season.
After Vanderbilt, though, he might face his most difficult hole yet to dig out of.
“We’re going to look in the mirror, and we’re going to accept the responsibility where we need to, and we always will,” Stoops said. “That’ll always happen while I’m here, but we have to do that quick.”
This story was originally published November 22, 2025 at 9:06 PM.
Jon Hale
Lexington Herald-Leader
Jon Hale is the University of Kentucky football beat writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the Herald-Leader in 2022 but has covered UK athletics for more than 10 years. Hale was named the 2021 Kentucky Sportswriter of the Year.
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