Survey says Kentucky the most downbeat fanbase in Power Four entering 2025 season

After a very disappointing 2024 season, morale isn’t exactly sky high in the Big Blue Nation heading into Mark Stoops’ 13th season; in fact, according to one survey, Kentucky fans are the most down on their team of any fanbase in the Power Four.

The Athletic released its 2025 College Football “Hope O-Meter,” a survey of 12,415 fans of all 136 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Kentucky ranks dead last among the Power Four teams, with 89% of UK fans surveyed saying they feel pessimistic about this upcoming season. Contrast that with last year, when 73% of Kentucky fans surveyed said they were optimistic about the 2024 season.

My, how things changed. We should have known we were in for a weird year when the opener against Southern Miss was delayed for almost two and a half hours due to storms and had to be called in the third quarter. The 31-6 loss to South Carolina the next week was a huge red flag, but the pendulum swung in the right direction with Kentucky’s win over Ole Miss in late September. It didn’t last long. The victory over the top-ten Rebels in Oxford was the Cats’ only SEC win of the season. It was the second-to-last win period, the only other being vs. Murray State at Kroger Field on Nov. 16.

There were a lot of bad losses last year, but the one that may have broken BBN was Louisville’s 41-14 rout in Lexington to end the season. To add insult to injury, the Cards are tied for first in this year’s Hope-O-Meter, with 100% of respondents saying they’re optimistic about this season. Ouch.

The Athletic shared one quote from a Kentucky fan, Pete Gabbucci. The Cats obviously didn’t go bowling last year, but even if they had made it to six wins, he wouldn’t have been satisfied. Something tells me he lives along the Kentucky/Indiana border.

“The Mark Stoops era hopefully becomes the Mark Stops (finally) era. He’s beyond checked out as coach and the fan base is checking out with him. 6-6 Belk Bowls aren’t cause for statues to be built for you when the playoffs field keeps expanding and INDIANA made it in already. Damn Hoosiers!”

Last year stunk, but 89% feels like a very high number to me. Maybe that’s just the game-week excitement talking. Here’s an optimistic stat: Kentucky has won its last five home openers and seven of its last eight season openers. The Cats have outscored their opponents by at least 24 points in the season opener the last four years. The spread for Saturday’s game vs. Toledo is up to -10 Kentucky, so if the Cats extend that streak to five by beating the Rockets by 24 or more points, surely some optimism will grow, right?

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33% of KSR staffers believe Kentucky will go bowling

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the KSR staff is more optimistic than those who took The Athletic’s survey. In our season predictions earlier this week, a third of the 15-person panel picked Kentucky to go 6-6, which would qualify the Cats for a bowl. No offense to Pete Gabbucci, but we’ll take the Belk Bowl, the Liberty Bowl, the Birmingham Bowl, or whatever bowl will have us.

Those were the rosiest projections. Most of our panel has the Cats going 5-7 and 2-6 in the SEC, with just one person, Jacob Polacheck, picking Kentucky to finish 4-8. Check out our reasoning below.

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