Are we expecting too much from Kentucky Football this year?

When it comes to Kentucky Football, I am an eternal optimist. If you are anything like me – and because I care about you, I hope you are not – it’s the same story year in and year out. As September draws near, we begin plotting routes to extraordinary success. Typically, by the time October ends, reality has set in.  For the past three years, however, our crash back to earth has been a much less precipitous drop than in years past. In fact, these past seasons have provided the optimists among us with a very strange (and dangerous) reason to be excited: reality. We return 16 starters from last year’s team. We have been to two straight bowl games. We have a generational talent at running back. We have continuity in our coaching staff. No one is predicting an SEC Championship…but the pieces seem to be in place for a special season (eight regular season wins in the benchmark in my mind). College football analyst, Phil Steele, seems to think otherwise. In his annual “College Football Preview”, a purported deep dive into every team that matters, Steele ranks Kentucky’s position units as follows: Nationally: QB – NR RB – 34 WR – NR OL – NR DL – NR LB – 41 DB – 30 ST – NR SEC: QB – 14/14 RB – 6/14 WR – 13/14 OL – 11/14 DL – 13/14 LB – 8/14 DB – 8/14 ST – 12/14 Coaching – 6/14 These rankings don’t speak to the sunny outlook that many fans are hoping (and maybe even expecting) for this season. Call me crazy, or unrealistic (I know you will) but, at the very least, these seem…disappointing? My initial thought is that Steele’s standings reflect a lack of respect for UK Football generally and not any real analysis of this year’s team. As an analyst, it is much safer to underrate Kentucky than it is to overrate them – and for most of my life, that strategy has paid off. A few of these rankings indicate that Steele took this route. Our OL is not amongst the SEC’s worst and Benny Snell alone merits a top 25 national ranking for our RB unit. I would even argue that our quarterback situation is not the worst in the SEC. Gunnar Hoak will be a system QB and the ceiling with Touchdown Terry seems to be high. I know they are both unknown commodities but Steele’s is forecasting anyways. With that said, despite all of the bright spots, Kentucky does have some looming question marks. Obviously, the most important being at quarterback. Our schedule is more difficult this year than last. We have won many games over the past few seasons on the leg of now graduated Austin MacGinnis. Given those concerns, should we reconsider how we define a successful season? Would six wins and a bowl berth be enough? As it stands right now, I think many fans would be disappointed with that outcome. In any case, we know that the margin for error will be slim – the past two years have taught us that. A few points can, and probably will be, the difference between four wins and a true breakthrough season. Oddsmakers currently have our win total at six…give me the over.