Five-Game Road Schedule Could Make or Break Kentucky Football's 2023 Season

After hitting the road four times a season ago, UK will play five away from Kroger Field in 2023. A winning record in those matchups will be important for another successful season in Lexington.

Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops has reached the impressive 10-win threshold twice in his 10-year tenure as Wildcat skipper. 

Both the 2018 and 2021 seasons provided more than a glimmer of hope to Big Blue Nation that what Stoops and his staff are trying to build in Lexington is absolutely attainable. With the upcoming expansion of the College Football Playoff, the goals for UK remain the same, but the bar has now been lowered. 

When looking back at each of those successful campaigns that featured nine-win regular seasons, there are a couple of patterns that can be picked out, but one in-particular that carves a much more thorough path for success: Winning games on the road. 

Stoops has won three road games in a season three times: The aforementioned years, along with 2017, though that season featured a season-opening victory over Southern Miss in Hattiesburg — albeit an important win, given the state of the program at that time.

The 2023 schedule features five games away from Kroger Field: 

• Sept. 23: @ Vanderbilt 
• Oct. 7: @ Georgia
• Nov. 4: @ Mississippi State
• Nov. 18: @ South Carolina
• Nov. 25: @ Louisville

Given the home games on the schedule, which in-conference feature showdowns against Florida, Tennessee and Alabama, winning at least three games on the road will  likely be imperative if the Cats want to have a chance to notch double-digit victories. 

Earning a winning record in that quartet of games will almost surely hinge on the final three, which are broken up by just one home game — versus Alabama — to finish the regular season. 

Despite Vanderbilt's heroics in Lexington a season ago, UK has won three in a row in Nashville and, barring a drastic change, is a streak that Stoops isn't planning on ending anytime soon. On the other side of that coin, Stoops is 0-10 against Georgia, with the five losses in Athens coming by an average of 26.6 points. 

Making the comfortable presumption that both trends will hold true in 2023, eyes will gravitate toward Starkville, another location that Stoops is yet to find a win in. Something about Davis Wade Stadium has consistently sucked the life out of the Wildcats, with the Bulldogs' last five wins at home over UK coming by an average of 19.8 points. 

Stoops is still yet to win a road game over any SEC West foe. The new-look 2023 Miss State squad could provide one of the better opportunities for that to change in recent memory. DraftKings recently announced its preseason win-total projections, pegging State at 6.5 wins, the same mark as UK. 

Then comes a trip to Columbia and Williams-Brice Stadium, the site of Stoops' first SEC road win, which came back in the second week of the 2015 season. UK is 3-2 at SC under Stoops, most recently winning in its last trip in 2021, in what was an ugly 16-10 victory. 

South Carolina also sits at that projected 6.5-win mark, as coach Shane Beamer returns quarterback Spencer Rattler, though a host of questions still surround the Gamecocks. 

Kentucky will end the regular season in Louisville for the Governor's Cup, a rivalry that it has absolutely dominated as of late. Stoops has lost just once at Cardinals Stadium, his first trip back in 2014. Since then, UK have won three in a row in enemy territory, with the last two coming by hefty margins of 46 and 31 points, respectively. 

New Cards head coach Jeff Brohm has hit the transfer portal hard, understands the importance of the rivalry and will want to jolt his alma mater back into the win column against UK. 

Below is Stoops' record on the road against all five teams he'll lead his Cats into battle against outside of Lexington in 2023:

• @ Louisville: 3-1
• @ Vanderbilt: 3-2
• @ South Carolina: 3-2
• @ Mississippi State: 0-5
• @ Georgia: 0-5

Stoops is 16-30 all-time on the road, though 12 of those wins have come over the last six seasons. A fourth campaign with three road wins would spell success for the Wildcats in 2023. 

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