PFF ranks Kentucky football No. 18 in preseason top-25

Kentucky missed out on both the AP and Coaches preseason top-25 rankings, though they did manage to receive a few votes. If it were to extend past 25, Kentucky would rank No. 33 in the AP poll (just ahead of Louisville) and No. 32 in the Coaches poll. But what do coaches and the press know? The real number-crunchers over at PFF slotted Kentucky No. 18 in the nation.

If you haven’t noticed my insistence on cramming PFF stats down your throat, I’m a big fan of their easy-to-understand yet extremely sophisticated analytical approach to grading football. It led to us knowing that Kentucky’s Big Blue Wall was the best offensive line in the SEC for three years in a row prior to dipping to the near bottom last season.

These aren’t newspaper interns and assistant-to-the-assistant staff members jotting down their vote for the best team, there are calculators involved in this ranking, so to see Kentucky at No. 18 in the country based on their analysis gives me assurance this is where they belong.

In fact, teams ranked 18 through 24 do not appear in either the Coaches or AP poll including Arkansas (tied for 18 with the Wildcats), Illinois, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Florida, and Mississippi State. PPF ranks Washington 25th and they are No. 10 and 11 in the AP and Coaches poll respectively.

More Kentucky PPF predictions

PPF goes on to give Kentucky an 82 percent chance to make a bowl game, a four percent chance to win the conference, a five percent chance to make the college football playoffs, and a one percent chance to win the championship.

Read that one again. If we played this season 20 times, PFF projects Kentucky would make the college football playoffs once. Moreover, if they played this season 100 times, Kentucky would win the national championship once.

Of course, if they did play the season that many times, they project Kentucky’s average win total to be 7.3, so the law of averages cuts both ways.

This is all with the 20th-hardest schedule in the nation.

The national folks might not quite be on board with the ‘Cats yet but statisticians will tell you the local hype around this program is not just fan frenzy.