UK Bowl Projection Contingencies

The Cats secured bowl eligibility with a shaky but ultimately satisfying win over Vandy on Saturday. There is an awful lot of uncertainty still about where the Cats may land. With USC winning over Florida, there is now no chance that the Cats land above the Tennessee tier of bowls. With UT winning easily over Ole Miss, and apparently finding its savior on Quarterback Tyler Bray, they are now a sexy pick to win out (@Vandy, UK) and gain bowl eligibility.

Assuming that is how it plays out, that would leave the SEC with three 6-6 teams (assuming Georgia can beat Georgia Tech at home on 11/27). Presumably, these three teams would fill the final 3 bowl spots in Nashville, Memphis and Birmingham. Unless the SEC only gets one team in the BCS, in which case there will only be two bowls for these three schools to go to.

In other words, UK is bowl eligible, but it is not guaranteed to go to a bowl. There are and endless number of "outs" though, that make a bowl trip a near certainty. Here are all the things that could happen, any one of which would land UK in a bowl:

1. Beating Tennessee. This is the easy one. This puts us at 7-5, knocks UT out, and puts us in either the Liberty or Music City.

2. Vandy beats UT at home. LSU takes care of business against Ole Miss. This guarantees there are enough spots for the Cats whether we beat UT or not. Frankly, I do not see Vandy pulling this off. They are truly awful.

3. Auburn beats Alabama and LSU wins out. Assuming Auburn beats Alabama, it is a lock for a BCS bowl (barring #5 below). If it goes to the National Championship, a one loss LSU is a lock for the Sugar.

4. Auburn beats Alabama, loses SEC Championship. This puts USC in the Sugar but makes a one loss Auburn almost a sure bet for another BCS bowl.

5. Cam Newton declared ineligible before SEC Championship game. If Auburn forfeits all of its wins, everyone moves up a notch.

6. Georgia loses to Georgia Tech on 11/27. The Dogs would sit at 5-7 and could not go to a bowl.

7. UK gets invited to a bowl ahead of UT or Georgia. I'd say this one is a total crapshoot. If UT beats UK, it will have a better league record and will be riding a three game streak on the back of a new QB. UT has not had a disappointing season when you get down to it. They were supposed to be god awful. Georgia is Georgia, and would seem to be a much better pull. If the Birmingham Bowl had to choose between us, well, Birmingham is close to practically all of Georgia. As little as Cats fans would want of U of L rematch in this game, the possibility of putting that game together in Birmingham might save the Cats' skin if none of these other contingencies work out.

8. Cats are invited to a bowl game outside the SEC chain. Every year there are conferences that cannot fill their bowl allotments. When this happens, bowls must fill slots with either a conference with which is has an existing agreement, then must take any 7 team, then may take a 6 win team. You are truly looking at scraps at this point. . . . .unless. . . .unless, Kentucky can take the Pac-1o's spot in the MAACO Bowl in Las Vegas on December 22. They are practically giving hotel rooms away in Vegas that week and you can get there from SDF pretty darned reasonably. However, if it plays out this way, my guess is you'll be much more likely to see UK taking on a MAC team in the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl in Detroit on December 26th.

As UK Football Fans know, it is a cruel, cruel world.

More on the pundits' predictions and my actual projections in separate posts.