UK Insider: How high can upstart Kentucky football climb in 2018?

Jon Hale
Courier Journal

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky’s best start to Southeastern Conference play since 1977 makes it easy for Big Blue Nation to dream of a special season and postseason destination.

While no fast start is a guarantee of sustained success (see the 2007 season when UK ascended as high as No. 8 in the country before losing four of its final five regular-season games), the Wildcats could be favored in all but two of their remaining games.

So how high is the ceiling for Mark Stoops team?

Kentucky quarterback Terry Wilson will look to lead UK to its first New Year's Day bowl game since the 1998 season.

Kentucky currently looks like Georgia’s biggest competition in the SEC East, and while the gap between the No. 17 Wildcats and No. 3 Bulldogs remains substantial, Stoops’ squad is still in contention to win the division and therefore have a shot at the SEC title and a place in the College Football Playoff or other New Year’s Six bowl.

Any realistic dreams of those possibilities will have to wait until after the Nov. 3 game against Georgia, but even national media outlets are already projecting the best bowl game for Kentucky since at least the 1999 Outback Bowl.

247Sports and SBNation have Kentucky in the Citrus Bowl in their most recent bowl projections. ESPN and Sporting News have the Wildcats in the Outback Bowl.

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Those projections seem about right, considering the SEC’s bowl-selection process.

The highest-ranked SEC team in the CFP committee’s poll outside the top four (or the SEC champion if it is not one of the four teams sent to the semifinals) will head to the Sugar Bowl this year.

Three other spots in the “New Year’s Six” bowls are available to teams from any conference ranked in the top 12 by the committee, assuming no team from the Mountain West, American, Conference USA, Sun Belt or MAC qualifies for the playoff. The top-ranked team from those conferences would earn one spot in the Peach or Fiesta bowls with the other three spots going to the top-ranked teams not sent to the playoff semifinals (Cotton and Orange), Sugar Bowl (SEC vs. Big 12) or Rose Bowl (Big Ten vs. Pac-12).

If the season ended today, Alabama and Georgia would both be in the playoff, and LSU would take the SEC’s Sugar Bowl spot. Auburn would give the SEC a fourth team in the New Year’s Six in either the Peach or Fiesta bowls. (We’re using the USA Today Amway Coaches’ poll for this discussion since the CFP committee has yet to release its first ranking.)

The Citrus Bowl (Orlando, Jan. 1) has first pick of SEC teams remaining after the New Year’s Six, and if it stuck with the current top 25 pecking order, Kentucky would be the selection. This scenario becomes more likely considering Kentucky has already beaten two of its top competitors for the bid in Mississippi State and Florida. Texas A&M and South Carolina could factor in the decision as well.

If one of the SEC teams currently projected in the New Year’s Six fell out of the top-12 or the Citrus Bowl took an available SEC team other than Kentucky, the Wildcats would fall into the “pool of six” bowl bracket it has reached the last two seasons. The SEC assigns its teams to those bowls based on a number of factors, including the effort to avoid repeat matchups.

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Kentucky will not be sent to the Music City Bowl (Nashville, Dec. 28) after playing in that game a year ago and probably would not be the pick for the TaxSlayer Bowl (Jacksonville, Dec. 31) after playing in that game in 2016, leaving the Texas Bowl (Houston, Dec. 27), Belk Bowl (Charlotte, Dec. 29), Liberty Bowl (Memphis, Dec. 31) and Outback Bowl (Tampa, Jan. 1) as possibilities.

While the “pool of six” bowls all carry the same weight in the SEC’s bowl pecking order, the Outback Bowl retains a higher profile thanks to its New Year’s Day kickoff. It seems logical that would be Kentucky’s highest priority of the “pool of six” bowls.

The Belk Bowl would make geographic sense but would present the same conflict as last year’s Music City Bowl appearance as it is scheduled for the same day as the Kentucky-Louisville men’s basketball game. If the Outback Bowl is off the table, a return trip to Memphis, where Kentucky played in the Liberty Bowl after the 2008 season, might be the most likely outcome.

Each week should give us a clearer view of Kentucky’s postseason possibilities and biggest competition for the more prestigious SEC bowls.

For now, though, there’s no harm in dreaming if you’re a UK fan.

Jon Hale: jahale@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @JonHale_CJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/jonh.