LSU’s trip to Kentucky doesn’t carry the kind of built-in venom that comes with Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M or Auburn. But every so often, this series coughs up something unforgettable anyway.
That’s why Saturday’s meeting in Lexington feels loaded with more than just SEC standings. No.
10 LSU, 4-1 overall and 1-1 in the conference, heads to face Kentucky at 6 p.m. CDT on ESPN.
It’s the Tigers’ first game against the Wildcats since 2021, and only their third trip to Kentucky since 2002.
And if you’re looking for the game that still defines this matchup, you don’t have to look far.
On Nov. 9, 2002, LSU was down 30-27 with :02 left when Marcus Randall launched a 75-yard prayer on a play called Dash Right 93 Berlin.
Nick Saban had his team rehearse it every week, and it never worked in practice. That afternoon, though, the ball bounced off three Kentucky defenders before landing in Devery Henderson’s hands.
Henderson shook off a desperate grab at his left knee by Derek Tatum and ran into the end zone “running like hell” for a 33-30 LSU win.
The scene turned chaotic in a hurry. Kentucky students spilled over the walls and rushed the field.
Fans climbed the goalpost behind Randall and then UK coach Guy Morriss, who got drenched with water in a “victory” bath before the final play had even finished unfolding. LSU was already piling up in the north end zone.
Afterward, outside Commonwealth Stadium, a Kentucky fan named Chris Holian summed up the whole thing in one line: “Fifty-nine minutes and 58 seconds,” he said. “I knew it was too good to be true.”
The series goes back much farther than that miracle finish. In 1909, LSU had just come off its first championship season, an unbeaten 10-0 run from 1908 that the school does not officially claim but the NCAA recognizes as a co-national title alongside Pennsylvania.
Late that year, LSU believed it was set to play Kentucky in Baton Rouge on Nov. 18.
Instead, the Tigers were greeted by a completely different visitor from Lexington: Transylvania, also known at the time as the State University of Kentucky.
LSU officials had been corresponding by mail with the University of Kentucky, a school they would not actually play in football for another 40 years. The mix-up was enormous, but the game went on anyway, and LSU rolled 52-0 for its most lopsided win of that season. The next day’s State-Times, sandwiched between ads for rheumatism cures and seed corn, offered a brutal assessment of the visitors: “The Kentucky Transylvania boys simply did not know how to play football,” the paper wrote. “… they were about as poor as ever seen on the (LSU) campus.”
Transylvania, a Division III school and the alma mater of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, dropped football in 1941. The school likes to joke that it has been unbeaten since 1942. Its women’s basketball team won the D-III national title in 2023 in Dallas, the day before LSU’s women beat Iowa for the national championship on the same court.
Another Kentucky-LSU chapter came in 2007, when the Tigers arrived in Lexington ranked No. 1 and left with a 43-37 triple-overtime loss to No. 17 Kentucky.
As had happened five years earlier, Wildcats fans stormed the field and interrupted the postgame handshake between LSU coach Les Miles and UK coach Rich Brooks. One of the fans who poured onto the field that day was 18-year-old Will Stein, now Kentucky’s first-year coach.
After the crowd finally cleared, LSU sports information director Michael Bonnette suggested Miles still do the handshake with Brooks. Miles agreed, and the two met privately under the stands before LSU left town. Even with that loss - and another triple-overtime defeat against Arkansas - the Tigers finished by beating Ohio State for the BCS national championship in the Superdome.
The Kentucky ties around this year’s game run deeper than just history. UK offensive coordinator Joe Sloan held that same job at LSU under Brian Kelly in 2024-25 before they were both fired. LSU offensive line coach Eric Wolford also spent the past two seasons in the same role at Kentucky.
There are player connections, too. Lance Heard, the Neville grad who played at LSU in 2023 before two years at Tennessee, has started every game at left tackle for Kentucky.
His matchup with LSU edge Princewill Umanmielen, who ranks second in FBS with eight sacks, should be one of the day’s biggest. Kentucky also has former Tiger defensive tackle Ahmad Breaux from Ruston and receiver Nic Anderson, who played at LSU last season.
The Wildcats’ leading receiver is Kenny Darby from Bossier Airline, who has 25 catches for 322 yards and three touchdowns.
The roster overlap doesn’t stop there. Offensive lineman Darren Strey transferred to LSU from Kentucky and has played in every game. LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt’s first visit after transferring out of Arizona State was to Kentucky, and offensive analyst Tee Martin coached Kentucky’s receivers from 2010-11.
Then there’s the old LSU-Kentucky link that still stands out above the rest: Charles McClendon, LSU’s all-time winningest coach at 137-59-7, played at Kentucky under Paul “Bear” Bryant. In 1969, McClendon’s Tigers beat Bryant’s Alabama team 20-15, making him the first former Bryant player to beat his old coach in a regular-season game.
At midfield, McClendon told Bryant, “Coach,” McClendon told Bryant at midfield, “this has been a long time coming.”
Bryant’s answer was pure Bryant: “I know it, Mac,” Bryant said, “but don’t ever think I like it.”
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