SIAP: UT/UK football contest date change in 2014

#2
#2
To be fair, it only became the end of the season game after 2002, when the conference office changed up the schedule format. Before then, Vanderbilt was the yearly end of the year game and Kentucky was the next-to-last-game.


The bigger news regarding UK and UT might even be that UK, a team traditionally as one of the last two teams on the schedule, moved up even further to have Missouri scheduled in between
 
#4
#4
Brian McCat said:
UK/UT has been our season closer since I can remember.
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Fair point. I just looked at UK's past schedules prior to 2002 and I wasn't aware UK's football seasons, prior to that year, had ended a week before everyone else's.


I had just been saying, from our side, it hasn't always been that was the last game of the season (in fact that it's fairly recent, as in the last 10 years or so)
 
#5
#5
Sure. Except for the weird 2001 make-up game for Sept. 11, UK has closed the season against Tennessee every year back to 1952.
 
#6
#6
Yep. And usually closed out the season a week before UT's final game against Vanderbilt (before 2002).


Btw, this may be off topic, but why did you guys stop playing Indiana in football?
 
#7
#7
TrueOrange said:
Yep. And usually closed out the season a week before UT's final game against Vanderbilt (before 2002).


Btw, this may be off topic, but why did you guys stop playing Indiana in football?
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Kentucky won 11 or 12 in a row, and Indiana sought to terminate the contract.
 
#8
#8
Brian McCat said:
UK has closed the season against Tennessee every year back to 1952.
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I guess this is why Kentucky fans would notice this, but I don't see why folks are fussing about it on the football forum. We used to always close the season versus Vandy.
 
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#9
#9
Velo Vol said:
I guess this is why Kentucky fans would notice this, but I don't see why folks are fussing about it on the football forum. We used to always close the season versus Vandy.
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Most of them are probably younger fans. We have been playing UK at the end since 2002...it might seem like we always did to some younger fans (because of how young they were when the change in schedule happened).
 
#14
#14
Brian McCat said:
I kind of like the change, tbh. I've never liked it as the first game of the year.
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That may actually make the game a lot bigger, at least locally.
But, the game will be lost nationally in years when neither team is good, while playing at the beginning of the season on a Sunday like it often has been guarantees a decent TV audience, because it's the only game on.
 
#15
#15
ukvols said:
That may actually make the game a lot bigger, at least locally.
But, the game will be lost nationally in years when neither team is good, while playing at the beginning of the season on a Sunday like it often has been guarantees a decent TV audience, because it's the only game on.
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According to the article, it looks like this was more pushed for by the SEC and ACC offices than the individual teams themselves:

Louisville Cardinals, Kentucky Wildcats move matchup to finale - ESPN

Though Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich prefers the teams to continue to play at the start of the season, the decision was made at the request of both the SEC and ACC, which the Cardinals will join in 2014.
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Next season, they will play on Nov. 29, 2014.

"There's great excitement surrounding Louisville's move into the ACC, and we look forward to when they are able to compete as conference members," ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. "The storied rivalry between Louisville and Kentucky is an important part of the tradition and history of both institutions, and we appreciate being able to showcase that game on the final weekend of the season along with the other interconference rivalries between the ACC and SEC."

The late-season shift will increase to four the number of ACC versus SEC intrastate rivalry matchups on the final weekend of the regular season, joining Florida State-Florida, Georgia Tech-Georgia and Clemson-South Carolina.
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#16
#16
It actually will be a nice fit then considering Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt all close their regular seasons the same weekend playing ACC schools, and will make 4 of the teams playing traditional rivals.
 
#17
#17
TrueOrange said:
To be fair, it only became the end of the season game after 2002, when the conference office changed up the schedule format. Before then, Vanderbilt was the yearly end of the year game and Kentucky was the next-to-last-game.
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I thought that was basically Vanderbilt wanting the game moved up a week because they complained that since many of their students aren't local, they lost the student body for the Thanksgiving weekend.

Which I could buy, until they went and scheduled Wake Forest as their last game.
 
#20
#20
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