No. 21 Texas will look to add to its resume and build on perhaps its best overall performance of the season when it travels to the Bluegrass State for the first time since 1993 to battle Kentucky on Saturday night in a Southeastern Conference clash in Lexington.
Texas owns a 2-0 lead in the all-time series against the Wildcats, with both games played in Austin, most recently a 31-14 victory in 2024. The Longhorns’ only other game in Kentucky was a 41-10 loss at Louisville 32 years ago.
The Longhorns (4-2, 1-1) posted their first conference win of the season when they beat then-No. 6 Oklahoma 23-6 on Saturday in the Red River Rivalry in Dallas. The victory pushed Texas, which began the season as the top-ranked team in the Associated Press poll, back into the poll after a week’s absence.
Quarterback Arch Manning showed improvement in the victory over the rival Sooners, completing 21 of 27 passes for 166 yards and a touchdown while better managing the game.
“One thing that Arch has done is he’s been very even-keeled,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said Monday. “He’s continued to work at his craft. Last week, he had a ton of third-down conversions. Some of them were off schedule, and that’s a strength of his. What he’s doing better is keeping his eyes up and keeping his vision up.”
Texas’ Quintrevion Wisner added 128 total yards (94 on the ground), and Ryan Niblett secured the win over Oklahoma when he returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Texas’ defense returned to form after a lackluster performance on Oct. 4 in a 29-21 loss at Florida, grabbing three interceptions and posting five sacks while allowing Oklahoma just 258 yards of total offense.
“It doesn’t matter what people write or say — it’s about what we do,” Sarkisian said. “It’s a lesson learned for us, and that’s where I talk about the maturity of our team. This is a great week for us to show our maturity for how far we’ve come as a team.”
The Wildcats (2-3, 0-3) will try to regroup after a bye week that followed a 35-14 loss at then-No. 12 Georgia on Oct. 4. Cutter Boley threw for 225 yards and two scores and was intercepted once in the loss as Kentucky fell for the second straight outing.
“We had a really good, productive bye week,” Wildcats coach Mark Stoops said Monday. “We needed to get some guys healthy and needed to get better, and I feel like we got a lot of work done.
“We looked a lot at ourselves, all the coaching pieces and what can we do better, how can we put our players in better position (to win). Sometimes it is just flat-out execution and you have to be able to carry over things.”
The Wildcats have a huge chance to find footing in the conference race. Kentucky has dropped eighth straight SEC games since beating Ole Miss on Sept. 28, 2024.
“(This team) is a hard-working group,” Stoops said. “We know what we want our football teams to look like, what I want them to look like each and every year. I feel like this team is very united, working extremely hard and very much passionate about getting better each and every day. And if we stay that way, then we’ll see the results eventually.”
