What happens now? Humiliating loss to undermanned Vandy a rock-bottom moment for Kentucky.
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Game day: Vanderbilt 24, Kentucky 21
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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Kentucky football fell to 6-4 on the 2022 season with a 24-21 loss to Vanderbilt at Kroger Field on Saturday. Here is a closer look at what the loss means beyond the scoreboard.
DISAPPOINTING SEASON HITS ROCK BOTTOM
It seems like a long time since reporters were voting Kentucky to finish second in the SEC East or ranking the Wildcats in the preseason Associated Press top 25 for just the fifth time in program history.
We knew before Saturday’s loss to Vanderbilt that the 2022 season was going to fall short of preseason goals to win the SEC East or reach a New Year’s Six bowl, but there was still a realistic chance to finish the regular season with eight wins and play in a more prestigious bowl than Kentucky is used to.
Two of Kentucky’s three losses to date had come against teams who entered the weekend ranked 11th or better. The third loss (to South Carolina) could at least in part be explained by the absence of star quarterback Will Levis in that game.
But there is no way to spin losing to lowly Vanderbilt, which had lost 26 consecutive SEC games before Saturday, as anything but an embarrassment that could deal a major blow to the strides Mark Stoops and company have made in elevating Kentucky’s respect level nationally. Vanderbilt has not recorded a winning season since 2013. It lost to Georgia and Alabama by a combined 110-3 margin earlier this season and was playing without its No. 1 quarterback and several other usual starters.
Theoretically upsetting No. 1 Georgia next week would reset the narrative, but it is impossible to imagine that scenario after watching Saturday’s game. Things could continue to spiral downward with a blowout loss to the Bulldogs and a loss to archrival Louisville in the regular-season finale, but even if that happens this game represents the point where the season went from underwhelming to a catastrophic failure.
BOWL IMPLICATIONS
Had Kentucky taken care of business against Vanderbilt and Louisville, even with a loss to Georgia the Wildcats looked like the favorite to reach the ReliaQuest Bowl (formerly known as the Outback Bowl) as long as one of the five teams ranked ahead of it in the playoff committee’s top 25 did not fall into the SEC’s “Pool of Six” bowls.
Barring an upset of Georgia, the Tampa, Florida, bowl game now looks out of reach for Kentucky.
The SEC assigns teams to the games in the “Pool of Six” but it does so with the input of schools and the bowl games. The ReliaQuest Bowl is generally the top target of schools in the pool due to its status as a Florida bowl game traditionally played on New Year’s Day. The league office generally gives the school with the best record first pick of games in the pool.
Florida could still get to eight wins. Mississippi State could finish ahead of Kentucky with one more win and two UK losses. South Carolina would probably have preference over Kentucky too if they finish with the same record due to the head-to-head win.
The SEC might not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all the games in the “Pool of Six,” but the most likely scenario now suggests Kentucky will have little say in where it goes. That means a trip to the Music City Bowl, which kicks off at the same time as the Kentucky-Louisville men’s basketball rivalry game on New Year’s Eve, can no longer be ruled out. The Las Vegas Bowl or Liberty Bowl are other possibilities.
VANDERBILT STREAK SNAPPED
Kentucky entered the game having won six straight against Vanderbilt. The Commodores picked up their first win in the series since 2013.
With the loss, Kentucky fell to 48-43-4 all-time against Vanderbilt. The dominance in the Stoops era versus the Commodores gave Kentucky one of its few comfortable advantages in an all-time series against an SEC rival, but none of that recent success was enough to avoid disaster on a snowy afternoon in Lexington.
Kentucky’s longest winning streak against an SEC team is now two games against Florida and Missouri.
This story was originally published November 12, 2022 at 3:27 PM.
