2024 Kentucky Football Foes: Texas Longhorns

Greetings, BBN!

The SEC finale for the Kentucky Wildcats, and their last chance to improve their finish in the standings, will take place in Austin against the Texas Longhorns.

Only once have the teams faced off: A 1951 non-conference game in Austin, when No. 11 Texas hosted and defeated Bear Bryant’s No. 6 Wildcats in a 7-6 mid-September victory.

This game might not be as high profile, but it’ll still be highly anticipated — especially by Kentucky fans. Let’s dive into this matchup:

Kentucky at Texas

• Date: November 23rd
• Time: Flex scheduling: 3:30 – 4:30 pm or 6 – 8 pm ET start
• TV Channel: TBA
• Location: DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, Austin, TX
• Series History: Texas leads the series 1-0-0

It seems like an eternity ago that the breaking news headline dropped that Texas and Oklahoma were leaving the Big 12 to join the SEC. I was still two months away from starting college at UK and have had to wait until my senior year now to actually watch the first Kentucky vs. Texas game on TV (and have to wait for my fifth year to see the first home game in the Kroger Field student section).

But, here we are at last. We’ll be seeing UK playing on football fields and basketball courts with Longhorns and Sooners logos, drawing UT and OU in SEC Tournament games, and no longer playing in the SEC East.

The 2024 season will feature a new-look SEC (and every other conference) and an expanded playoff. It’s going to be a fun, exciting season with so much new and never-before-seen stuff to anticipate!

Kentucky’s only traveled to the state of Texas to play football a handful of times. They’ve played in Austin the one time before, been to Waco twice, played TCU in Dallas in the Cotton Bowl, played at Houston once, faced SMU in Dallas, beat Rice in 1953, and, of course, gone to College Station twice to play the Texas A&M Aggies.

There haven’t been a whole lot of trips to the Lone Star State. They are 3-6 there with wins over Rice, Baylor, and Texas A&M.

Prediction: The Longhorns are looking like they’re going to be a top-five team this season. They’re coming off a CFP appearance and a 12-2 season, which pretty much tells me to expect UK to run into a buzzsaw.

The one glimmer of hope, though, is that next week, the Longhorns travel to Texas A&M for their season finale, so UK might be able to catch them looking ahead. The A&M game hasn’t been played in over a decade, so it will be very highly anticipated by not just those fanbases but the entire country. Even so, this will probably be as difficult as winning at Alabama or Georgia.

Texas 38, Kentucky 22