Kentucky Football Ranks Outside of Top 100 in Returning Production

[Editor’s Note: After further deliberation among colleagues from around the SEC, it’s abundantly clear these numbers are incorrect. Players who were listed as seniors on last year’s rosters were not included in the returning production stat. Not only has the portal made calculations more difficult, so have the Covid Super Seniors.]

Mark Stoops will rely on upperclassmen in 2024, but that does not mean Kentucky will return a significant amount of production from last year’s team.

The easiest way to project a team’s future success is to determine how much production is returning from the following season. That is why it is the first order of business for ESPN’s resident advanced statistician, Bill Connelly.

The curator of SP+ has calculated returning production for all 134 FBS teams in 2024. Kentucky falls outside of the top 100, ranking No. 102 overall with 49% returning production. The Cats have just 45% (No. 110) of their offense and 52% (No. 89) of the defensive production back in 2024.

At the top of the rankings, you’ll see Virginia Tech, Iowa State, and Nebraska, not exactly the top teams in the sport of college football in 2024. In fact, there are just two SEC teams in the Top 25, Texas A&M (No. 18) and Texas (No. 25). You’ll only find two SEC teams ranked lower than Kentucky, Arkansas (No. 109) and Alabama (No. 115).

See where all 123 FBS teams rank in returning production, according to ESPN’s SP+.

How ESPN Calculates Returning Production

Phil Steele provided the initial barometer by simply measuring returning starters. While that’s a valuable asset for an offensive line, it does not paint an accurate picture. This has been complicated by the transfer portal. To keep it clean, Connelly simply plugs in the new arrival’s numbers from the year prior into the equation.

OFFENSE
Percent of returning WR/TE receiving yards: 23.5% of the overall number
Percent of returning QB passing yards: 24%
Percent of returning OL snaps: 47.5%
Percent of returning RB rushing yards: 5%

DEFENSE
Percent of returning tackles: 69.5%
Percent of returning passes defensed (intercepted or broken up): 12%
Percent of returning tackles for loss: 10.5%
Percent of returning sacks: 8%

Why Kentucky is so far down the Pecking Order

Now that you know how it works, you’re probably wondering why the Wildcats are outside of the Top 100. When scrolling through Adam Luckett’s depth chart projections for the offense and defense you’ll see senior, junior, redshirt junior, super senior. In fact, there’s only one player on the early two-deep that is not at least a junior, redshirt sophomore Tyreese Fearbry.

So what gives?

Well to start, Kentucky is replacing a starting quarterback with someone who only played in garbage time last fall at Georgia. The Cats also lost leading rusher Ray Davis. Not only did he account for 68% of the team’s rushing yards, he was one of the team’s top pass-catchers, leading the team in receiving touchdowns.

The story isn’t so different on defense. Trevin Wallace ranked second on the team in tackles (80) and sacks (5.5) and is being replaced by Jamon Dumas-Johnson, who was sidelined by injury for the final month of the 2023 season.

What It Means for the Wildcats

The thing about numbers is they are what they are. Over the years of curating SP+, Connelly has learned how returning production impacts final SP+ rankings. For teams like Kentucky that have less than 50% returning production, they are expected to drop 5.7 SP+ points from the year prior, which in this case would drop Kentucky from No. 22 overall to No. 51.

In case that point didn’t get driven home clearly enough. Kentucky was a top 25 team in the power ratings a year ago and they only won seven games. They’re expected to fall outside of the top 50 of the power rankings next fall, something that has only happened once in the last seven years, during the Covid-plagued 2020 season.

Kentucky is in a unique situation in 2024. The Wildcats will field a team that has logged plenty of Power Five snaps over multiple seasons, just not together. This team must quickly create chemistry, or the consequences may be dire in the new 16-team SEC.