The home crowd of Kentucky Football fans had forgotten what it felt like to celebrate in Lexington. As we all know too well, Kroger Field had become a place where visitors took over and Big Blue Nation left rivalry games before the final whistle.

But all of that finally changed on Saturday night when the Wildcats buried Florida, 38-7, snapping the 11-game home losing streak against conference opponents and Louisville. For the first time in more than two years, Lexington belonged to Kentucky again in a meaningful game.

A fun fact, it had been 2,247 days since Florida last won in Lexington, and Kentucky didn’t just protect that streak on Saturday night, it extended it to three straight wins over the Gators at home. And the third in a row was complete domination in the 2025 SEC home finale. Cutter Boley again played like the quarterback of Kentucky’s future, completing 18 of 23 passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns, while the defense suffocated Florida’s offense from the opening drive, with four takeaways. It could’ve been a shutout if not for the muffed punt early in the game, which set up Florida’s only red zone appearance.

This wasn’t the same Kentucky team that kept falling short in its own stadium game after game for the last two-plus seasons. The Wildcats played with confidence and had their way with Florida, running for 233 yards and outgaining the Gators 401-247 in total. It was the kind of night that hits the reset button on a struggling program, as Mark Stoops has strung together consecutive league wins with his back against the wall.

Unlike the last time Kentucky was at home, fans stayed and celebrated as the clock wound down for this one, then the fun continued into the parking lot and on into the night. It was great to see BBN happy again at home, especially against a logo team like Florida that had UK’s number for so many years.

4 out of 5 over the Gators

Stoops’ dominance over Florida isn’t just at home. He, of course, first snapped the decades-long streak in Gainesville in 2018, then won in the Swamp again in 2022. Overall, Kentucky has now won four of the last five meetings in a series that once felt impossible to flip. There’s a new streak in town.

Enjoy this one, BBN.

Now, Skykes, whose firm showcases multimillion-dollar deals in both Florida and the Northeast, said she’s watching two Americas diverge in real time. In the Northeast, she’s seeing bidding wars have returned in commuter suburbs like Monmouth County, N.J., and mid-Long Island, where buyers still fight for an acre and an elite school district. In Florida, by contrast, she described a market in withdrawal, nursing a hangover after a flurry of activity. “Just a couple years ago, we were being love-bombed and told how great we were,” she said, citing Florida’s burgeoning status as “Wall Street South,” a new finance hub. Now, things are “flat” or even heading downward.

Home prices in Florida have fallen 5.4% year-over-year, dragged down by a glut of aging condos facing six-figure special assessments and post-Surfside safety mandates. Single-family homes, meanwhile, remain relatively resilient, she noted. She characterized the Sunshine State’s housing scene as a cycle of boom, bust, and burnout. She’s always fueled by the belief that somehow, the next round will be different.

“Now we’re being told, ‘Oh, you’re too expensive,’ and kind of being discarded,” Sykes said. “You know, the conversation changes by the day, really.”

Noting that Florida has always been a boom-or-bust state, she said she sees signs of moderation rather than collapse. “Rather than being the boom up here and the bust way down here like we saw in 2008 and 2009, the waves are becoming flatter,” she said. While there may be a pullback in prices, “really, a 5% pullback is nothing when your house has appreciated 25%.”

For Florida, Sykes argued, even a flat market signals stability after years of breakneck appreciation—especially in Palm Beach, where home values have jumped as much as 200% in the past few years.

The challenge of dual market personalities

Sykes described jarring regional differences. In Florida as an agent, you’re “just trying to really push and pull and drag deals together, you’re getting discounts of 5%, 10%, 20% off list price,” but then in the Northeast you find yourself going into a bidding war. “It’s like having a multiple personality disorder.”

That volatility, she noted, reflects a broader split between regions that overheated during the pandemic and those returning to normal. The migration wave that sent high earners south may have turbocharged Florida’s boom but also exposed its fragility. Now, Sykes said, agents and homeowners alike are navigating two competing realities: the Northeast’s cautious recovery and the Southeast’s cooling after years of mania.

She also outlined a bifurcation within the Florida housing market: while single-family homes remain robust thanks to demand for space among incoming families, condos face mounting challenges. That’s difficult because they are “really what has been driving down the Florida market,” and they are facing new challenges from special assessments, strengthened structural regulations, and fallout from incidents like the Surfside collapse. Pre-selling of new-construction condos continues apace, she said, with West Palm Beach alone seeing many significant developments underway.​

Sykes described a bifurcation between single-family homes and condos in Florida, since its exploding population is full of people who left Manhattan or Chicago and “wanted their own space.” She said single-family homes are doing well, and then “We’re seeing condos bifurcated, and then within that bifurcation of condos, a secondary bifurcation.”

“Florida,” she concluded, “you have to always take with a grain of salt.”

The Florida Gators coaching search could take a wild turn in November.

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The Gators fired head coach Billy Napier on Oct. 19 after starting the season 3-4. Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin appears to be the top candidate for Florida, but it’s unclear if Kiffin has any intentions of leaving the Rebels amid a No. 6 spot in the first College Football Playoff ranking.

On Wednesday, Josh Pate set off a firestorm of speculation about USC head coach Lincoln Riley. During Wednesday’s episode of “Bussin With The Boys” podcast, Pate suggested Riley could be on the move.

“Let’s just keep an eye on Lincoln Riley at USC,” Pate said.

More News: LSU Linked to Ultimate Anti-Brian Kelly Candidate

Keith Niebuhr of On3 invited more speculation on Riley’s future with the Trojans. He put Riley on the hot board of candidates for the Gators.

Niebuhr reported that there isn’t “much chatter” about Riley and Florida (implying that there is some), but that more smoke about the USC head coach is likely to come.

“Because things look wide open (at least on the surface) after Kiffin, it’s worth adding Riley’s name to this list even though there has not yet been much chatter about him and the Gators,” Niebuhr wrote. “There has been some chatter, though unverified, that Riley might be interested in working back in his home state of Texas.

“It’s not yet known on our part if UF has any interest.”

Riley would not owe USC any money if he wanted a fresh start with a new program before his 10-year, $110 million contract is up at the end of the 2031 season.

Riley is 32-16 during his four seasons with the Trojans. Southern Cal is 6-2 this season before playing at home on Saturday against Northwestern.

Riley has not been able to replicate the same success at USC that he had at Oklahoma, when he went 55-10 in five seasons and won four Big 12 championships and made three CFP appearances.

Riley could figure he has a better chance of returning to the CFP with Florida than staying the course at USC.

For more on the NCAA, head to Newsweek Sports.