After 31 straight losses, Kentucky finally beat Florida

The Gators had beaten UK 31 times in a row, the country’s longest current streak by any team over another.

And seemingly every year, UK had the Gators on the ropes, with shenanigous endings costing the Wildcats over and over. This time, though, the game’s biggest blooper went against the Gators, with a seemingly made UF field goal being ruled a miss.

Still, the Gators made it a one-score game when Feleipe Franks found Freddie Swain for the wide-open TD, but missed basically the same play on the 2-point try. That made it 21-16.

And then, during UF’s last-grasp drive, Florida seemed to think a Josh Allen strip-sack of Franks was an incompletion. The ball bounded around for a while before UK decided to just run the thing back to the end zone. The final score: 27-16.

Cats beat Gators for the first time since Top Gun was in theaters. CHOMP CHOMP:

In 2017, UK lost because it ... literally forgot to cover receivers. Previously:

In 1993, Kentucky held a 20-17 lead with less than 10 seconds left on the clock in Lexington. But Gator quarterback Danny Wuerffel, who threw three picks that night, threw a touchdown to receiver Chris Doering with three seconds left. The touchdown sealed a 24-20 Florida win.

Then 10 years later in 2003, the 14-year-old streak looked to be in danger. It was Rich Brooks’ first season, and his team was up 21-3 at halftime. But in the fourth quarter, true freshman quarterback Chris Leak took over, throwing two touchdown passes and a 2-point conversion to go up 24-21 with a little over three minutes left in the game. The Wildcats tried a 49-yard field goal with less than a minute left, but it was no good.

The game in 2007 looked like one of Kentucky’s best shots, after a historic upset over No. 1 LSU the week prior, with the Wildcats hosting Florida in Lexington. The Wildcats went down to Tim Tebow and Florida’s offense 28-10 in the second half, but UK’s offense pulled within a score in the third quarter. A pair of Gator fourth-quarter touchdowns would seal Florida’s 45-37 victory, with Kentucky scoring a touchdown in the final seconds.

In 2014 in Gainesville, Kentucky lost, 36-30, in triple overtime amid dubious officiating. During the game’s first overtime, Florida had the ball second and tied things up on a pass from Jeff Driskel to Demarcus Robinson on fourth down. But it looked like Driskel didn’t get the ball snapped before the play clock hit zero:

The next season, the Wildcats held Florida’s offense to just 14 points the whole night, keeping them off the board entirely in the second half. But Kentucky could just score two field goals in the fourth quarter lost 14-9 to Florida then 14-9 at home in 2015.