More new bowl projections place Kentucky in a postseason game its never played in
A heartbreaking loss to Tennessee on Saturday night in its rearview mirror, the Kentucky football team still has plenty to play for this fall. Three winnable games will close out the regular season.
The Wildcats are likely to be favored in all three of those remaining games, starting Saturday afternoon at Vanderbilt — the line opened with UK an 8½-point favorite in that one — and then home games over FCS opponent UT Martin and rebuilding rival Louisville.
Despite the 17-13 loss to the Vols, the Cats could still end up in a solid bowl game.
Some of the earliest national projections after this past weekend’s games placed Kentucky in a familiar spot: the Music City Bowl in Nashville, which will be played Dec. 30 at 4 p.m. and televised nationally on ESPN.
The latest projections from CBS Sports, 247Sports and one of ESPN’s expert bowl pickers placed UK in that game. CBS and 247Sports both predicted that the Cats would face Virginia, while ESPN’s Mark Schlabach pits the Cats against Miami, which is led by former UK quarterback commitment Jarren Williams.
Virginia leads the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Coastal Division with a 5-2 league record and 7-3 mark overall, while Miami (6-4, 4-3 ACC) is a game back in that division. UK is currently 4-5 and needs two more victories to become bowl eligible.
Kentucky has played in the Music City Bowl following the 2017, 2009, 2007, 2006 and 1999 seasons. The Nashville area is home to many UK fans — and not a long drive from Lexington — but it might be unlikely for the Cats to go to the same bowl twice in three years under the Southeastern Conference’s current bowl selection format.
More bowl projections posted Monday and Tuesday sent Kentucky to a different postseason locale, one the Cats have never played in before.
Projections from Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, and longtime college football reporter Brett McMurphy placed the Cats in the Belk Bowl, which will be played at noon on New Year’s Eve in Charlotte, N.C. Sports Illustrated has UK playing Virginia Tech, while the other two sets of predictions both matched the Cats with Miami in Charlotte.
ESPN’s other postseason picker, Kyle Bonagura, also placed Kentucky in the Belk Bowl with his picks Sunday, pitting the Cats against Pittsburgh.
Kentucky has never played in that bowl game, and that could make it an interesting destination for both parties.
Bowl selection process
Under the SEC’s postseason selection system, the Citrus Bowl — which UK played in last season — will have the No. 1 pick of the league teams that do not qualify for the national playoffs or one of the other New Year’s Six bowls. (As of now, Louisiana State, Alabama and Georgia are all popular picks to be in either the playoffs or a New Year’s Six bowl).
Most of the current projections have Florida getting the Citrus Bowl spot.
After that, there’s a “pool of six” bowl games — Outback, Music City, Gator, Liberty, Texas and Belk — that will get one SEC team each. The conference will make assignments for those bowl games after consulting with the representatives from each bowl and the schools themselves. If the Cats are bowl eligible, they’ll likely be in one of those games, but the different scenarios that go into that process make it difficult to predict exactly where the Wildcats will land.
In addition to the Belk Bowl, the Cats have never played in the Texas Bowl (Dec. 27 in Houston) and have not appeared in the Liberty Bowl (Dec. 31 in Memphis) since the 2008 season.
Other bowl projections
USA Today’s updated projections, posted Tuesday, placed Kentucky in the Liberty Bowl against Kansas State, which is already bowl eligible at 6-3 and has a 3-3 record in the Big 12 with three league games remaining on the schedule. Kansas State defeated Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago.
Projections posted by The Sporting News on Sunday matched Kentucky against North Carolina in the Independence Bowl, which will be played Dec. 26 at 4 p.m. in Shreveport, La., though that seems to be an unlikely destination based on the number of expected bowl-eligible teams in the SEC.
The Independence Bowl is one tier below the “pool of six” games and also below the Birmingham Bowl, which would get first pick of the bowl-eligible SEC teams that aren’t selected for one of the “pool of six” games. The league probably won’t have enough bowl-eligible teams to get that far down the list.
This story was originally published November 11, 2019 at 7:37 AM.
