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LEXINGTON, Ky. — The word this week that the 2025-26 Kentucky-Louisville men’s basketball game will be played on Nov. 11 was a surprise. By calendar date, it will be far and away the earliest that the Wildcats and Cardinals have met in men’s hoops.

Overall, it will be only the third time in a series that currently totals 57 games that UK and U of L have met prior to December, with Kentucky standing 2-0 vs. Louisville in November. The Wildcats defeated the Cardinals 65-44 on Nov. 26, 1983, and 78-70 on Nov. 27, 1993, both at Rupp Arena.

That the Cats and Cards are playing men’s hoops in November at least opens the door to a previously discussed idea that could potentially galvanize sports fans in this state. With a little vision and some scheduling flexibility, UK and Louisville could create a “Super Bowl weekend” of college sports in the commonwealth.

In football, the past 10 Kentucky-Louisville games have been played in November on the final weekend of the season.

This past season, the UK-U of L women’s basketball game was played on Nov. 16.

Since the Wildcats and Cardinals are now playing in November in all three of the most visible sports anyway, let’s imagine a world in which Kentucky and Louisville play all three of those games on consecutive days on the final weekend of the 11th month.

— On Friday, you play UK-U of L women’s basketball.

— For Saturday, it is Kentucky-Louisville football.

— Then, on Sunday, it is Cats-Cards men’s basketball.

Rather than presenting the Governor’s Cup trophy to the football winner between Wildcats and Cardinals as occurs now, the trophy would go to the university that wins at least two of the three above contests each year.

In the days leading up to “Armageddon Weekend,” the energy in the commonwealth would have the state rocking off its foundations.

If the games fell on the three days immediately after Thanksgiving, can you imagine what the discussions would be like on Turkey Day, especially in “mixed families” where there are both Kentucky and Louisville fans?

I first proposed this idea in a column that was published on Aug. 23, 2013. In the years since, things have moved in a direction that, on the surface, makes the plan seem more plausible.

— 2014: At the behest of the Southeastern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference, Kentucky-Louisville football moved to the regular-season finale.

The game became a part of a mini-SEC/ACC challenge that ends each college football regular season with Florida-Florida State, Georgia-Georgia Tech and South Carolina-Clemson also all playing on the same weekend as UK and U of L.

— 2024: In the era when Matthew Mitchell coached women’s basketball at Kentucky, he and Louisville coach Jeff Walz had a gentleman’s agreement to play the UK-U of L game on the first weekend of December.

In Kenny Brooks’ debut as Wildcats coach this past season, however, the Cats-Cards game moved to November.

— 2025: For their second seasons at their respective schools, men’s hoops coaches Mark Pope of UK and Pat Kelsey of U of L have agreed to play in November, too.

Already, the schedule rotations between Kentucky and Louisville in football, men’s hoops and women’s hoops have UK and U of L playing in the same city in the same year in all three of those sports.

In 2024-25, that trio of games was in Lexington. In 2025-26, those contests will all be in Louisville.

So that’s the proposal: One November weekend, three successive days, Cats vs. Cards in the three most visible sports in the same city.

Reasons this will likely never happen are myriad.

In an era when head coaches have massive influence in scheduling, locking in the UK-U of L men’s and women’s basketball games on a particular weekend each year would remove some of the flexibility each head coach currently has in shaping their slates of games.

Mark Stoops and Jeff Brohm might not want to give up having the Kentucky-Louisville football game alone decide the winner of the Governor’s Cup trophy.

For any of this to come to fruition, you would need high-level cooperation and coordination between the athletics departments at UK and Louisville.

In this state’s college athletics history, there has not been an abundance of that.

Then there is big picture, specifically the chaotic, current moment in big-time college sports.

Given the massive amount of uncertainty that presently exists around future conference alignments and proposed scheduling alliances, there have been questions over whether the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry in the major sports is going to exist at all in coming years.

Yet as things stand now, if you are going to play the UK-U of L games in football and men’s and women’s hoops in November anyway, why not play them on consecutive days on the final week of the month and give the commonwealth a college sports “rivalry weekend” that would be the envy of the other 49 states.