LEXINGTON — For much of the last 40 years, Kentucky versus Tennessee has been a football “rivalry” in name only.
Tennessee has dominated the series, winning 33 of the 35 games in the series since 1984. Even as Mark Stoops has built Kentucky’s program to respectability, the Wildcats have beaten the Volunteers just once in his first seven years as coach.
The abysmal record against its border-state rival is one of the few historic albatrosses still hanging over the program.
“It’s important,” Stoops said Monday. “It is a team that is on your side of the league.