Tennessee is the final boss for ending the Old Kentucky Football trope

In just one year, Will Stein has helped Kentucky Football reach heights never seen in Lexington before. The biggest indicator of this came during Tuesday’s debut of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee Rankings, which had Kentucky earning its highest ranking ever at No. 6.We also cannot forget all of the good his predecessor, Mark Stoops, did in Lexington during his 13-year run as the program’s head coach. Those two have helped nearly vanquish the ‘Old Kentucky Football’ trope that plagued this program for far too long.But for all the good we’ve seen them accomplish, Old Kentucky Football hasn’t been fully eradicated just yet. And these Wildcats have a chance to end a major part of that dreaded trope: Beating a good Tennessee team.Huh? Surely Kentucky has done that against a program it’s played in 83 consecutive seasonsUnfortunately, you have to go back quite a ways to find a year Kentucky actually beat a good Volunteers team.You probably remember how the Vols once owned a 26-game winning streak in this series, which finally ended in 2011. And while Tennessee has still owned this series since then, the Wildcats do have two other wins since then in 2017 and 2020.In fact, that 2020 win in Knoxville was over an 18th-ranked Tennessee squad that’s not too far from this week’s 13th-ranked Volunteers team. However, that Tennessee team turned out to be a disaster, finishing 3-7 before having the entire season vacated due to recruiting violations.Kentucky’s 2017 win wasn’t much better. Those Vols finished 4-8 and fired head coach Butch Jones just two weeks after losing in Lexington.The 2011 Tennessee team at least had a chance to make a bowl game. The Vols entered the regular-season finale matchup with Kentucky at 5-6 overall, but the Matt Roark-led Wildcats scored an improbable 10-7 victory to send Derek Dooley’s Vols home for the holidays at 5-7.You won’t find another Kentucky win in the series until you get all the way back to 1984, when a 9-3 Wildcats squad went into Knoxville and took down a Tennessee team that finished 7-4-1. That’s the last time Kentucky beat a Vols team that finished with a winning record. Ironically, that Kentucky team featured defensive end Matt Stein, the father of first-year head coach Will Stein.Yes, that means UK’s 37-year-old coach, along with many of us, wasn’t even alive to see the last time Kentucky actually beat a good Tennessee team.And if you’re looking for a win over a Vols team that finished in the AP Poll or CFP rankings, you have to go back even further: 1957 is the last time it happened when a 2-7 Kentucky team pulled off a shocker in Lexington against a 6-2 Tennessee team that would finish 8-3 overall and No. 13 in the final AP Poll after being ranked as high as No. 5.This year’s Tennessee team is ranked No. 13 in the CFP rankings. The Vols’ remaining schedule includes games at Texas A&M, vs. No. 14 LSU, and at Vanderbilt.Let’s say Tennessee loses to both Kentucky and LSU but beats Texas A&M and Vandy. At a current ranking of No. 13 and taking two more top-25 losses the rest of the way, an 8-4 Vols team would still have a good chance to finish in the top 25 of the CFP rankings and/or the AP Poll, especially if No. 5 Alabama continues to stay near the top after being crushed by these same Vols three weeks ago.So while we’ve seen the Old Kentucky Football trope nearly vanquished, one aspect of it remains: Kentucky doesn’t beat good Tennessee teams.