Lexington TV news station takes brutal shot at Tennessee fans

Early summertime brings about cicada season with them having emerged in places, including Lexington, Kentucky. With that, the local media used that to take a jab at the state-line rival of the Kentucky Wildcats.

LEX18 was covering the arrival of cicadas in town on the evening news anchored by Larry Smith and Megan Mannering on Thursday night. They used that to create an online poll for viewers to vote on what’s more annoying – cicadas or fans of the Tennessee Volunteers.

What's more annoying: Cicadas or Tennessee fans? WLEX in Lexington wants to know.

(H/T @AnakinVolwalker) pic.twitter.com/qGPJPnGm7v

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 6, 2025

“We want to hear your reaction, which is why we’re asking you to vote right now in our live poll. We want to know what is more annoying, cicadas or Tennessee fans,” Smith said with a smirk.

For reference, Tennessee would go on to be labeled as more annoying. The Volunteers won the poll at 69% while the cicadas got 31%.

Kentucky and Tennessee aren’t even technically each other’s main rivals with the Wildcats having Louisville and the Volunteers having other programs to pick from in the SEC. That said, there’s still no love lost between UK and UT.

Lexington may have taken the shot at Knoxville from up north here. That said, the Volunteers to lead all-time series between them in four of the five major sports in football (85-26-9), women’s basketball (61-17), baseball (185-158), and softball (54-16). The Wildcats then obviously lead all-time in men’s basketball (163-79) but, of all the games in that series, Tennessee is coming off the biggest one having beaten Kentucky in the Sweet 16 back in March, their first-ever meeting in the NCAA Tournament to advance to the Elite Eight.

As for ’24-’25, Kentucky won 5-3 against Tennessee in those five sports this athletic year. The Volunteers won in football with a 28-18 win in Neyland Stadium, that 78-65 victory in the Sweet 16, and one game in their baseball series. The Wildcats, though, won all three regular-season games in men and women’s basketball as well as two games to take the baseball series on the road at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.

Right or wrong, this is a reputation that’s been given to the Volunteers’ fanbase both in conference and nationally. Even so, at some point, it shouldn’t matter to them as one of the best athletics schools in college sports considering the recent success of several of their programs in the department.

LEX18 could’ve picked several ‘annoying’ things to put in that poll. Instead, they poked as part of the rivalry by including the Volunteers.