Kentucky Football lands inside top 25 of ESPN’s preseason SP+ rankings

The Kentucky Wildcats have seven months before they will take the field for their first football game of the 2023 season, but that just means talking season is in full swing.

With Spring practice approaching, and the early transfer window now officially closed, national media is now able to look at what the landscape of college football will look like to start the 2023-24 season.

After an impressive transfer and high school recruiting class, the returning playmaking from last season's team, and the sustained success Mark Stoops has built, the Cats are stacking up well in the early days of the preseason rankings.

Most recently the ESPN SP+ rankings like Kentucky, ranking them inside the top 25 at No. 24 overall. That is good enough to be the ninth-best ranking in the SEC behind Georgia (No. 1), Alabama (No. 4), Tennessee (No. 6), LSU (No. 7), Texas A&M (No. 17), Ole Miss (No. 18), Florida (No. 20), and Mississippi State (No. 23).

With the ranking taking into account the features mentioned above (recruiting, returning production, and team history) it is nice to see that Stoops and his staff have built a solid foundation for this program when it comes to the national media.

Now comes the part of beating these expectations.

With the schedule this season, the Cats will have their hands full in the SEC once again. This is also the final season before Texas and Oklahoma join the party, who are both ranked inside the top 15 of this same ranking.

There is still a lot to figure out about how this roster will look come fall camp, but early indications seem to think this Kentucky team has all the right things going for them.

Should be a fun spring practice to follow.