| Sport | College soccer |
|---|---|
| First meeting | November 9, 1991 South Carolina 6–0 Kentucky |
| Latest meeting | September 15, 2023 Kentucky 0-1 South Carolina |
| Next meeting | 2024 @ South Carolina |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 23 |
| All-time series | Kentucky, 11–10–2 |
| Largest victory | South Carolina 6–0 Kentucky (1991) |
| Longest win streak | 4, Kentucky (2017–2020) |
| Longest unbeaten streak | 7, Kentucky (2017–2022) |
| Current win streak | 1, South Carolina (2023-) |
| Current unbeaten streak | 1, South Carolina (2023-) |
The SEC Derby is the set of matches between the University of Kentucky Wildcats and University of South Carolina Gamecocks men's soccer teams. A conference matchup since 2005, since the 2022 season, it has been a conference matchup in the Sun Belt Conference.[1] Both programs had been single-sport members of Conference USA (C-USA) from 2005 through the 2021 season. Both teams are the only colleges in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) which sponsor men's soccer, which the conference does not sponsor as an indirect consequence of Title IX restrictions. South Carolina had started its program in 1978 while an independent, and UK started its program in 1991.[2][3] From 1991 to 2004, UK had been a Mid-American Conference member for men's soccer only. Despite having joined the Metro Conference in 1983, South Carolina continued to play men's soccer as an independent, not joining for that sport until 1993, two years after the rest of its athletic program had joined the SEC. The Gamecocks also played in the Metro in that league's final men's soccer season of 1994. The following year, C-USA was created with the merger of the Metro with the Great Midwest Conference, a league that had been formed in 1991 by a group of schools that included three charter Metro members. South Carolina was not invited to remain as a men's soccer member after the merger.
The matches between the two teams have also been nicknamed The Southeastern Conference Men's Soccer Championship.[4]
Prior to the establishment of the formal derby in 2005, Kentucky had a rivalry with Vanderbilt, when the Vanderbilt Commodores men's soccer program was active. When the UK–Vanderbilt rivalry was first played in 1991, Vanderbilt was a men's soccer independent, later becoming a single-sport member of the Sun Belt Conference for the 1995 and 1996 seasons and the Missouri Valley Conference from 1997 until the school dropped men's soccer after the 2005 season. The last UK–Vanderbilt match was played in 2000. South Carolina did not regularly schedule Vanderbilt at the time, as they had primarily been independent (except for the final two years of the Metro's existence); in 2005, South Carolina's return to the reunified C-USA led to UK joining that league.[5]
Both Carolina and UK won two C-USA tournament titles before moving to the Sun Belt Conference.
- ^ "Sun Belt Conference Announces Return of Men's Soccer This Fall" (Press release). Sun Belt Conference. April 6, 2022. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
- ^ Keating, Peter (May 23, 2012). "The silent enemy of men's sports". ESPN. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
- ^ Labat, Trey (October 1, 2012). "Soccer: Men's teams absent in the SEC". The Daily Reveille. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
- ^ Shirley, Brittany (September 29, 2018). "UK to Contest SEC Men's Soccer Championship v South Carolina". ukathletics.com. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
On paper it's round three of Kentucky's Conference USA slate, but in colloquial terms Saturday's matchup will be the Southeastern Conference Men's Soccer Championship game.
- ^ "Men's Soccer disbanding causes outcry". 247sports.com. January 25, 2006. Retrieved November 26, 2018.