Just wanted to reply to this to point a few things out. You are correct, Kentucky has generally been at the bottom of the SEC. In the past most Kentucky fans have only cared about basketball, as long as we were somewhat competitive winning half our games and going to an occasional bowl fans were ok with that.
That has changed in recent years. After Rich Brooks retired he had our team meeting those goals, then Joker took over and ran the program into the ground. Fans had enough, a lot were not happy with Jokers hiring in the frirst place as he was an assistant coach on a team that had won half its games. He had not really proven anything. Fans finally got fed up after he ran the program into the ground, and demanded the administration put more effort into the football team. Up to that point we barely paid our coaches much less the assistants, and we were making way too much money from football to not put a better product on the field.
So they went out and hired Stoops, the defensive coordinator from Florida State who I would say has been the best head coaching candidate I've seen Kentucky get in a very long time. They not only paid the man, but they actually started paying for assistants and we got some good recruiters. Its been said that when Stoops came in, he realized we didn't even have the players to compete with Sun Belt teams. They had to build the program from the ground up. If you look at his record this is his fifth year, and we have gotten better every year since.
2013 Kentucky 2–10 0–8 7th (Eastern)
2014 Kentucky 5–7 2–6 6th (Eastern)
2015 Kentucky 5–7 2–6 T–4th (Eastern)
2016 Kentucky 7–6 4–4 T–2nd (Eastern)
L TaxSlayer
2017 Kentucky 3–0 1–0 (Eastern)
We also just did a $120 million renovation to the arena. So Kentucky football is actually trying now because the fans are now demanding it. That is a HUGE difference fromt he past. I know people have a hard time getting past history of how a team performs sometimes, but things do change. Notre Dame isn't the powerhouse program they once were. Don't expect Kentucky to be a cakewalk anymore, the fans won't allow a mediocre product these days.