National love for Kentucky Football continues to build

Over the past few weeks, Kentucky Football has picked up some buzz, with national media members sharing positive reports from camp and calling the Cats a sleeper team in the SEC. As we inch closer to kickoff, more and more pundits are jumping on the Big Blue bandwagon. Yesterday, three of CBS Sports’ eight college football writers chose Kentucky as their most underrated team in the SEC, with one calling for the Cats to finish with TEN regular season wins. If you’re counting at home, that probably means losses to Georgia and Alabama, both preseason top-five squads.

“UK is a perennial dark horse in the soon-to-be defunct SEC East, but this might actually be the year to buy the hype,” Will Backus wrote. “The Wildcats get three of their five most difficult games at home, though that October road trip to Georgia is a beast. Kentucky is a strong candidate to reach at least 10 regular-season wins — something it has not done since 1977 — while confidently pushing back into the top half of the SEC.”

Backus went further, predicting that Kentucky will finish in the top three in the SEC in both total offense and scoring offense thanks to the return of Liam Coen, the addition of Devin Leary, and “offensive weapons that rank among the best in the entire conference.”

All of that said, every member of the panel chose Tennessee to finish No. 2 in the SEC East behind Georgia. Five of the eight have Kentucky third, the remaining three going with South Carolina. Barrett Sallee, enemy of Shannon the Dude, has the Cats finishing fifth behind Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida. Will Backus > Barrett Sallee.

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Andy Staples praises Kentucky on “Pardon My Take”

After hosting Devin Leary on his show earlier this week, Andy Staples made the case for Kentucky during an appearance on “Pardon My Take.”

“I think people in the SEC are talking about this, I don’t know about nationally, but Kentucky seems to have fixed a lot of the things that caused problems last year,” Staples said, mentioning the issues on the offensive line, the return of Coen, and Leary transferring in.

“They could be quite a bit better. They have some very good young receivers in Dane Key and Barion Brown. Hopefully better on the offensive line. That will be a big one for them as they just have gone kind of downhill in that department but they’ve recruited well over the years so you’d think it will come back around. That’s one that, if you’re Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina, you’re worried about them being considerably better than they were last year.”

Listening to @PardonMyTake and @Andy_Staples giving UK football love is awesome! @KySportsRadio @DrewFranklinKSR @ryanlemond pic.twitter.com/2cMPeRjquS

— kyle 📸 (@Kyle_Of_Duty) August 25, 2023

Keep bringing me the Kool-Aid.

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