Two weeks ago, I admitted I had a gut feeling. Every week when I sat down to figure out where this Kentucky Football team was headed, the answer in my head was PLAYOFFS. Said loudly, in my best Jim Mora voice.
Back then, it felt a little crazy. After the LSU win, only three of ESPN’s 11 experts had Kentucky in their playoff field, and Heather Dinich had the Cats as the 12th team in.
Now? Kentucky is getting a lot more playoff love following Saturday’s 34-17 victory over Vanderbilt, putting the Wildcats
in first place in the SEC standings. It wasn’t pretty early. Vandy jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the second quarter, and for a while, it looked like the Cats might get caught in the same trap that took down a bunch of ranked teams the past two Saturdays.
Then, Kentucky outscored the Commodores 34-7 the rest of the way while looking much more like a team capable of earning a playoff spot.
Kenny Minchey went 19/26 for 203 yards and a touchdown. Freshman Kenny Darby caught five passes for 71 yards, including a 44-yarder that set up Kentucky’s first touchdown of the second half.
Backup quarterback Brennen Ward got the first carry of his career and turned it into a 10-yard touchdown run. And the defense held Vanderbilt to 15 rushing yards on 17 carries. Fifteen.
Will Stein said afterward that his team is hungry and not satisfied, and that the goal is a November to remember.
Kentucky is 7-1 (5-1 SEC) and sits alone in first place in the SEC, a half game ahead of Georgia.
The Coaches Poll moved the Cats up four spots to No. 8 in the country. Kentucky is a top-10 team. Read that one more time.
The new AP Poll had Kentucky up from No. 12 to No. 9.
A few nuggets from another historic week:
- Stein is the first Kentucky coach to start 7-1 in his first season since E.R. Sweetland in 1909. That’s 117 years.
- Kentucky has won five straight SEC games for the first time since 1977.
- The Cats have won six straight since the Week 2 loss to Alabama.
- Kentucky has clinched a winning SEC record for just the third time since 1977.
Where Kentucky stands in the College Football Playoff Projections
After the LSU win, Kentucky was a fun maybe. After Oklahoma, a popular pick. After Vanderbilt, Kentucky is a unanimous one. Every major national projection I could find has the Wildcats in the 12-team field, and the seeds now range from No. 6 to No. 9.
- CBS Sports (Brad Crawford): No. 6 seed, hosting No. 11 Notre Dame (up from No. 10 last week)
- Sports Illustrated (Bryan Fischer): No. 6 seed, hosting No. 11 Florida
- On3 (Andy Staples): No. 7 seed, hosting No. 10 Florida, with the winner facing No. 2 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl (up from No. 9)
- Sporting News (Bill Bender): No. 8 seed, hosting No. 9 BYU
- ESPN (Heather Dinich): No. 9
And the ESPN expert panel, which had just three of 11 voters putting Kentucky in after LSU:
- Adam Rittenberg: No. 6
- Bill Connelly: No. 7
- David Hale: No. 7
- Alex Scarborough: No. 7
- Mark Schlabach: No. 7
- Dave Wilson: No. 7
- Eli Lederman: No. 8
- Jake Trotter: No. 8
- Paolo Uggetti: No. 8
- Andrea Adelson: No. 9
- Kyle Bonagura: No. 9
- Max Olson: No. 9
Twelve for twelve.
Notice something else. Seeds 5 through 8 host first-round games. Most of these projections now have Kentucky hosting a playoff game at Kroger Field in December. Two weeks ago we were talking about a trip to Bloomington. Now, we’re talking about Notre Dame, Florida, or BYU coming to Lexington.
Crawford went further than anyone. He said Stein should be the frontrunner for national coach of the year after the wins over LSU and at Oklahoma. On3’s Ari Wasserman, who has Kentucky No. 8 in his top 10, admitted the Alabama blowout made everyone think this build would take a while.
On the playoff question, he wrote that it’s “easier to argue for it than against it.”
The bye week and the first CFP rankings
Kentucky is off this Saturday, and the timing could not be better. The Cats get a week to get healthy before the stretch run.
It also means Kentucky’s resume is locked in before the College Football Playoff selection committee releases its first rankings on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Dinich pointed this out herself: with the bye, Kentucky’s resume is complete before that first ranking comes out.
So when the committee reveals its top 25, Kentucky will be in it. The only question is where. Dinich explained why that number matters so much. Teams have historically been better off losing early than late, and that first ranking will show how much margin for error Kentucky has in November.
And I’ll say what I’ve been saying for weeks.
My pick: PLAYOFFS. And I’m not whispering it anymore.
What’s next
This is where it gets real. Kentucky’s true place in the playoff picture gets decided in November, with three straight games against ranked teams before the Governor’s Cup.
- Oct. 31: Bye
- Nov. 3: First College Football Playoff rankings
- Nov. 7: at Tennessee
- Nov. 14: Florida
- Nov. 21: at Missouri
- Nov. 28: Louisville
Two weeks ago I asked if this was likely. The answer was no, but it was possible. Today, with Kentucky alone in first place in the SEC and in every projection in the country, the answer has changed. It’s not just possible anymore. It’s real.
Saying this, it’s on the Kentucky players and coaches to keep this dream going. What they’ve done thus far has been unbelievable and brought tremendous joy to the BBN.
But to make the playoff, they’ll have to continue improving every single day, as all four of their remaining opponents can beat the Cats if they don’t come ready to play.
Or, as Will Stein says, “One play at a time. One-play focus.”
