Good morning, friends, and Happy Labor Day. For a lot of people, that means a day away from work. For Kentucky fans, it also means a chance to catch up on everything that happened while the Wildcats were busy making noise in some very different places.
The headline belongs to Kentucky volleyball, which delivered one of the sport’s most eye-catching scenes of the year on Sunday night. The third-ranked Wildcats beat No.
13 Penn State in four sets at Wrigley Field as part of the Big Ten-SEC Challenge, turning a baseball cathedral into a volleyball stage and doing it in front of a record crowd for a Kentucky match. A total of 43,067 fans showed up for the event.
That number also made it the second-highest attended sporting event in Wrigley Field history.
The official attendance tonight at Wrigley Field is 43,067.
That ranks second all-time in the stadium's history only behind the game where Jackie Robinson playing here in 1947 with 46,572 people in attendance.
Volleyball fans… you are UNREAL!!🤯
- Emily Ehman (@emilyehman) September 7, 2026
Kentucky handled the first two sets by scores of 25-23 and 25-21, then Penn State kept things alive with a 25-23 win in the third. The Wildcats closed the door in the fourth, rolling to a 25-15 finish.
Brooklyn DeLeye powered the attack with a season-high 21 kills and 10 digs. Morgan Gaerte added 15 kills and six blocks, and Kassie O’Brien posted a season-high 48 assists.
Elsewhere in the college sports world, Sunday night brought a tight football finish in Nashville. No.
9 Ole Miss outlasted No. 24 Louisville 41-38 in a neutral-site game that went right down to the final second.
Louisville clawed back from a 14-point deficit to tie it with 1:28 left, but Ole Miss answered with the game-winning field goal as time expired.
Former Kentucky cornerback DJ Waller, now with Louisville, drew attention on the broadcast for the wrong reasons. His biggest miscue came on a roughing-the-kicker penalty after a missed 57-yard Ole Miss attempt on 4th-and-11, which gave the Rebels a fresh set of downs and eventually led to a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
The game produced 63 second-half points and finished 41-38. In the other Sunday games, No.
4 Notre Dame beat Wisconsin 41-13 at Lambeau Field, and No. 17 Washington took down Washington State in the Apple Cup.
Ole Miss’ win also pushed the Southeastern Conference to a perfect 16-0 record against out-of-conference opponents in the opening weekend, the league’s first undefeated Week 1 since 1997. That matters a little more in Lexington because the SEC’s first conference game of next weekend is Alabama at Kentucky. The last time Kentucky beat Alabama was in that 1997 season.
Around Kentucky football, the weekly rhythm has changed. Will Stein has moved the press conference from Monday to Tuesday and the coach’s show from Monday night to Wednesday night, so there won’t be a Stein media session today or any Monday this season. That shift is still taking some getting used to.
One thing that is staying put is the KSR Football Podcast. A new episode drops tonight at 6 p.m. and will cover Saturday’s win over Youngstown State along with a look ahead to Alabama. This week’s show features Justin Rowland joining Nick Roush, Adam Luckett, and me as the rotating fourth chair.
There won’t be a live KSR morning radio show today, though. Because of the company holiday at iHeart, the crew is off for a three-day weekend while a replay airs from 10 a.m. to noon.
And if you’ve been waiting to jump on the KSR+ Season Kickoff Sale, today is the last day to do it. The offer is 75% off through Monday, with new members able to get their first year for $30 or 12 months for $2.49 per month.
In Other News...
Kentucky Gets Its First Real Chance To Back Up The Hype
Will Steins first game as Kentuckys head coach went about as well as the Wildcats could have hoped, with a season-opening win over Youngstown State giving the new staff a clean starting point. It also offered an early look at a roster that has talked plenty about its belief in the group, and the opener did enough to keep that optimism intact as Kentucky moved on to Alabama week.
Now comes the part that will tell the bigger story. Kentucky heads into this matchup as the underdog, facing a Crimson Tide team that brings a different level of talent and depth, and the Wildcats will have to translate the confidence they showed in Week 1 into something sturdier against a far sterner test. The opener featured encouraging performances from key players, but Alabama is the kind of opponent that quickly reveals whether the hype is real or just September noise. [Read more 🡒]
Alabama Heads Into Kentucky With One Big Problem Fans Will Notice
Kentuckys Week 2 meeting with Alabama comes with a strange kind of uncertainty for both staffs, the sort that only shows up this early in the season. Kalen DeBoer spent part of his press conference Wednesday talking through the usual mix of player evaluation, preparation and the challenges of jumping into an SEC game this quickly, while also acknowledging that the Crimson Tide are still trying to get a clear read on what Kentucky looks like under new head coach Will Stein.
The catch for Alabama is that the film bank is thin, and what is available does not offer much of a clean blueprint. DeBoer said the Tide are leaning heavily on fundamentals as they get ready for an early conference test, which makes this more of a game-plan-for-the-basics week than a deep-dive into tendencies. The matchup is set for ABC and Disney+, and for Kentucky, that kind of uncertainty can be a useful place to be when a heavyweight comes to town. [Read more 🡒]
Kentucky Gets A Huge Spotlight For An Alabama Opportunity Fans Crave
Kentucky is getting a major national showcase for its home date with No. 13 Alabama, with SEC Network bringing SEC Nation and Marty & McGee to Lexington for game day. The networks marquee college football pregame setup will add another layer of attention to a matchup that already carries plenty of weight for the Wildcats, especially with Alabama coming in off its win over East Carolina and a fresh spotlight on a road environment that should feel a little different than the usual Saturday in Lexington.
The buildup starts even earlier, with Paul Finebaum set to take his weekday show on the road to Lexington the day before kickoff, giving fans a full week of television attention around one of the seasons biggest home games. For Alabama, the trip also brings a wrinkle worth watching in freshman quarterback Keelon Russell, who is slated for his first road start, and that kind of early test only raises the stakes for a Kentucky team hoping the national stage turns into the kind of opportunity its fans have been waiting for. [Read more 🡒]