Kentucky could still make the College Football Playoff. Here’s how.
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Game day: No. 1 Georgia 30, No. 11 Kentucky 13
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Georgia football game at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga.
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Losing to Georgia, obviously, was a huge blow to the nascent idea of Kentucky making the College Football Playoff.
An undefeated Kentucky football team entering the Southeastern Conference Championship Game still would have had to conquer Alabama — which bludgeoned it, 63-3, last year in Tuscaloosa — to ensure itself of a CFP berth. If UK had lost to the Crimson Tide in that game, especially by a wide margin, it would have done as much to harm its CFP hopes as losing on Saturday did. The “narrative” matters a lot in college football, and fair or not, it just wouldn’t have backed the Wildcats.
Now, UK could still back into the SEC title game if it wins out and Georgia trips up. But let’s assume that doesn’t happen; how could Kentucky stay in the CFP conversation?
The “too long, didn’t read” version: It would need a lot of help, but it’s not impossible.
“On any given Saturday, crazy things happen,” UK head coach Mark Stoops said following the Cats’ loss to Georgia. “It appeared to me that there were some different things going on today as well. This is college football. It’s chaos at times.”
Here’s what needs to happen for UK to stay in the playoff picture.
Win out
This is the only variable completely in Kentucky’s control. It should be a favorite over its final five opponents but three of those teams — Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Louisville — will be the host. It won’t be a cakewalk, but the Cats to this point have demonstrated enough defensively to have earned the benefit of the doubt down the stretch. The toughest foe left, arguably, is Mississippi State; UK will travel to Starkville following its bye week.
On one hand it’ll be well-rested, but will have two weeks to dwell on its first loss of the season. Any letdown in the back half of the schedule will assure Kentucky of a postseason trip outside of college football’s “final four,” and opportunities abound for them to occur. UK hasn’t won in Starkville since 2008. It hosts Tennessee the next week and has beaten the Volunteers, whose offense has ramped up considerably from a year ago, just twice in eight tries under Mark Stoops. Vanderbilt and New Mexico State are light challenges, but Louisville will be eager to spoil any shot Kentucky has of putting a ribbon on what could be one of the best seasons in program history.
Any minute chance Kentucky has of earning a spot in the College Football Playoff hinges on it taking care of business after its bye week.
Big Ten battles
The first CFP rankings won’t be released until Nov. 2. By that time, two massive Big Ten games will have been played: Michigan at Michigan State and Penn State at Ohio State, both on Oct. 30 (the same weekend UK goes to Mississippi State.
After that weekend, either OSU or PSU would have two losses, effectively taking them out of the playoff conversation. It would also leave the winner between Michigan and MSU as the only unbeaten team left in the league, assuming they get to their matchup unscathed.
Iowa has only one regular-season game left against a team with an above-.500 record in the conference (Minnesota), so it’s tough to see it losing again before the Big Ten Championship. However, predicting the Hawkeyes would have lost to Purdue, and as badly as it did, prior to Saturday would have been foolish, so what should happen is often much different than reality. The Hawkeyes could run the table and be the league’s only one-loss team, but their lone loss would be worse than Kentucky’s.
The Spartans close the regular season at Ohio State (Nov. 20) and hosting the Nittany Lions (Nov. 27). Michigan travels to Penn State on Nov. 13 and hosts Ohio State on Nov. 27. It’s conceivable that every unbeaten Big Ten team not named Iowa could have two losses after all of these marquee games are played. An example:
Michigan: Loses at Penn State, loses to Ohio State.
Michigan State: Loses to Michigan, loses at Ohio State.
Ohio State: Loses to Penn State.
Penn State: Loses to Michigan State.
Will that actually happen? Doubtful. But it might not need to: the relative overall strength of that league’s East Division is going to bruise at least a couple of teams’ cases for the postseason, and an unexpected upset or two could throw everything out of whack. Kentucky needs to be rooting for chaos in the Big Ten, though, to bolster its own case.
Cincinnati stumbles
If you start from the assumption that Georgia and Iowa will be in, that leaves two spots to fill in the CFP field. Based on the latest AP rankings, those teams would be Cincinnati and Oklahoma.
The CFP committee hasn’t been favorable to non-Power Five teams before, so it’s entirely possible that a one-loss team from a Power Five conference would be considered over an undefeated Cincinnati team anyway (that was the case last year). But a UC team with a single loss would definitely be out of the playoff discussion, especially with its only remaining ranked opponent being SMU.
UK needs Cincinnati out of the way to ensure a less muddy path into the CFP. Sorry, Bearcats.
Go Bulldogs
Unless Kentucky can worm into the SEC Championship Game as a result of Georgia missteps — and it would need a couple, now — then it needs to be the biggest Georgia fan outside of Athens.
That includes in the SEC Championship Game. The Bulldogs beating Alabama seems essential, and a beatdown would be even better. One can imagine a scenario where the CFP committee would talk itself into thinking a two-loss Alabama team is better than a one-loss Kentucky team, and it’d probably be right; if Alabama’s second loss is by a landslide, though, that’s tougher to argue.
If a one-loss Alabama team were to beat Georgia in the SEC finals, then Kentucky is all but assured of being kept out of the playoff. It’d probably be the Sugar Bowl favorite, which is a great consolation prize, but a runner-up trophy nonetheless.
Oklahoma, OK State and Oregon
The Pac-12’s impact on college football this season has been minuscule, but Oregon is out west lingering as a sneaky playoff team. The Ducks, like Kentucky, will need a lot of help from the aforementioned parties to get in. It has a couple of tough road trips left (at UCLA and at Utah), but a one-loss Oregon team that wins the Pac-12 title might get more benefit of the doubt than Kentucky on brand-name alone. Root for the Ducks to lose another game.
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State play each other to close the regular season, so one of them will have at least one loss by December. It’s not impossible that they could meet again the following week in the Big 12 Championship Game, since that league doesn’t have divisions and they could be 1-2 in it by year’s end. In that scenario, the best outcome would be for whoever lost the regular season game to win the Big 12 title rematch. It’s hard to see the CFP committee having the cajones to put one of those schools in the CFP over the other in that scenario.
Next game
No. 15 Kentucky at Mississippi State
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 30
TV: SEC Network
This story was originally published October 17, 2021 at 9:54 AM.
