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Big Blue Daily Mail -- Kentucky Football Bowl Hopes Edition

By Glenn Logan

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I did not get to see or hear a minute of Saturday's game as Mrs. Tru and I were out at Churchill Downs enjoying a beautiful day of racing, and yesterday I was again away from the blog due to other commitments.

As many of you know, the Big Blue Daily Mail has been less and less "daily" lately, something I am not too happy with.  So in an effort to streamline it and make it easier for me to publish each morning, I will be including fewer stories in the BBDM and losing the categorization.  From now on, the BBDM will be something in the neighborhood of 10-20 news/blog stories.

The big news from last Saturday is a) Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke both sat the EKU game out and b) Morgan Newton and a fairly quiet UK receiving corps had a big day against a team that they should have a big day against.  The question now becomes, with Kentucky sitting on the bubble at 5-3, can the 'Cats win one more to get bowl eligible, and even if they do, does it actually mean they will be playing in a bowl?

Right now, there are 6 SEC teams that are bowl-eligible at 6+ wins, and the only team that is out of bowl striking distance is Vanderbilt at 2-7.  The way I count it, there are a total of nine bowl tie-ins for the SEC, and it looks as if there could be 10 bowl-eligible teams from the SEC.  So at this point, I'm going to suggest that six wins will not get UK into a bowl game this year all by itself.  Seven probably will, and eight definitely will, but the Mississippi State loss two games ago could well cost Rich Brooks his much-ballyhooed fourth bowl in a row.  An alert reader reminded me that the SEC has 2 likely BCS teams, so that would mean 11 spots rather than 9.  So it looks like unless MSU wins out, all UK needs is to win six games to make a low-level bowl.

Here's how the league looks for the rest of the season:

 

Team cWL W-L bWL SoS Polls Left on schedule
Florida 7-0 9-0 7-0 47.41 1,[1!] @USC, FIU, FSU, Alabama
Alabama 6-0 9-0 7-0 52.62 3,[2!] @MSU, UT Chat., @Auburn, @Florida
LSU 4-2 7-2 5-2 50.74 11,8 LaTech, @Ole Miss, Arkansas
South Carolina 3-4 6-4 4-4 44.86 42 Florida, Clemson
Auburn 3-3 7-3 4-3 46.42 25,27 @UGA, Alabama
Tennessee 2-3 5-4 2-4 46.43 37,35 @Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, @UK
Arkansas 2-4 5-4 3-4 49.70
Troy, MSU, @LSU
Georgia 3-3 5-4 4-4 48.67
Auburn, UK, @Ga Tech
Kentucky 1-4 5-4 2-4 48.83
@Vandy, @UGA, UT
Mississippi State 2-3 4-5 2-4 55.59
Alabama, @Arkansas, Ole Miss
Mississippi 2-3 6-3 2-3 38.54 39,38 Tennessee, LSU, @MSU
Vanderbilt 0-6 2-8 0-7 40.47
Kentucky, @UT

Looking at that schedule, you'd have to say that MSU has the toughest row to hoe to get to bow eligibility, having to pull off two major upsets to get there.  Arkansas has the easiest path remaining to six wins with Troy coming in next week, then MSU.  UK has a fairly manageable path to six wins, but the seventh is going to require an upset, although not a major one.

Obviously, if UK winds up with six wins and 2-6 in conference, bowls are going to be dropping either UK or somebody like Arkansas, assuming they only win one more, or Georgia, assuming they only get six.  Georgia has a very tough road to seven wins, and would have to beat Auburn and UK back to back, or upset highly ranked Georgia Tech.

In the end, UK could be in a real tough spot if it winds up with only six wins and is competing against the likes of Tennessee or Georgia for the final bowl spot.  UK might get picked over Arkansas (and might not), but I think the 'Cats lose out if they are sitting on six wins with Georgia and/or Tennessee as their competitor for the final bowl spot.  The 'Cats have only one big win on their entire schedule right now, versus rising Auburn on the Plains.

Now, for the news:

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