LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It wasn’t the setting you’d expect for big college football news — a legislative committee hearing at the Capitol Annex in Frankfort. But that's where Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart and Louisville's Josh Heird reassured fans that the Governor's Cup isn't going anywhere.
Testifying before the Interim Joint Committee on Economic Development & Workforce Investment on Thursday, the topic was revenue sharing and NIL. But State Rep. Matt Lehman of Newport pivoted to something near and dear to fans: Would the UK-U of L football rivalry survive as the SEC and ACC expand to nine-game conference slates?
He said he’d read some speculation, and asked, “Is that something on your radar or something we need to think about here as well?”
Barnhart jumped in without hesitation.
“I don’t want to say this the wrong way. We don’t need any help scheduling. I think we’re good,” he said with a smile.
The key takeaway: They’re going to keep playing.
“We’ve got to play an (Autonomous) Four opponent,” Barnhart said. “So that's part of it. It doesn't make a lot of sense for us to go get on a plane and spend quarter of a million dollars to go someplace else when we've got one 80 miles down the road. It’s good for both fan bases. I see no reason to challenge that, unless there's some other underlying reason to do that. It's good for our communities. It's good for our financial, economic structures where we are all live.”
Both Barnhart and Heird said they had worked with their conferences to make sure that they wind up with the same number of home games each season.
“I'll just say, we haven't even talked about it,” Heird said. “And from my end, I didn't feel like I needed to, because I'm just assuming that we're going to play every year, because it's extremely important to the Commonwealth, and it's something that our fans want, it's something that our coaches want, and our expectation is for it to happen.”
It’s a rare moment of calm in the swirling sea of college football change — and a reminder that some traditions still carry enough weight to stand firm.
Heird did express concern over other scheduled games —Louisville’s has a 2026 home date with Georgia on Sept. 19, a return trip in 2027 and a home-and-home with Texas A&M in 2028 and ’29 — any of which could be casualties of the SEC's evolving nine-game slate. But UK was never in doubt.
“When they went to nine games, yeah, I was worried that [SEC teams] are not going to play those games,” Heird said. “And that’s probably going to play out here a little bit. But UK wasn’t one of them.”
The annual UK-U of L game is part of a larger network of ACC-SEC rivalries both leagues hope to preserve. Others include:
- Georgia vs. Georgia Tech
- Florida vs. Florida State
- South Carolina vs. Clemson
- Florida vs. Miami
In a college sports world driven by money, media rights, and playoff positioning, the Commonwealth’s rivalry game hopefully has staying power — and both athletic directors seem committed to keeping it that way.
And in this case, it took a senator’s offhand question to give fans the answer they’ve been waiting to hear.
Quick Sips
• The new injury report is out, and it’s a murky one for Louisville football entering ACC play on the road at Pittsburgh Saturday. Not only are star running back Isaac Brown and sophomore RB Duke Watson listed as “questionable,” but so are two starting defensive linemen and the starting SAM linebacker. Read details here.
• If you missed it yesterday, there was significant soccer news. USL, the league where LouCity FC competes, has brought on a new private equity partner and announced it is moving forward with a Division One, hoping to put itself on a par with Major League Soccer, with the exception that it will become the first American pro league to feature relegation and promotion. LouCity has made a formal application to join that division. Read more here.
The Last Drop
"There’s a balance of providing the resources to try to ensure that men's basketball and football are competitive, and where it gets really hard is if those sports aren't, because that trickle down effect impacts the other sports that we have. And that's the -- no pun intended here -- game that we're playing. And so how do we make sure that those sports are resourced at a really high level to be able to be as successful as they can be? Because if they're not, then everybody else is going to lose as well, and that's a tough position to be in. There's no other way to say it.”
Josh Heird, Louisville athletic director, on athletic revenue sharing decisions
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