LITTLE ROCK — Reviewing the 2019 football schedules of SEC West teams alphabetically, Arkansas’ four-game midseason gauntlet received immediate attention.
Beginning Oct. 12, the Razorbacks play at Kentucky, home vs. Auburn, at Alabama and home vs. Mississippi State.
Not too long ago swapping Vanderbilt for Kentucky would be pretty much a push and dispatched with a flippant reference to football playing second fiddle to the Wildcats’ basketball program.
But under Mark Stoops, football has become more than a bridge to John Calipari’s Big Blue Madness practice in October. Kentucky has finished 4-4 in the SEC each of the past two years, played in two straight bowl games and earlier this year defeated Florida for the first time in more than 30 years.