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In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.

Week 2 saw the University of Kentucky Wildcats overcome a disappointing first half to comfortably dispatch the Kent State Golden Flashes, 56-20. Granted, Kent State isn’t the most formidable of opponents, but they do have a road win over a school from a Bowl Championship Series conference, Iowa State. (The Cyclones lost to a 1-AA school — not going to see any of that subdivision terminology from us – Northern Iowa, in Week 2. But, hey, they’re still in the Big XII last we checked.) Plus, as the Lexington Herald-Leader’s John Clay pointed out, this game had all the signs of a classic trap game. So it was nice to see Kentucky run out 36-point winners.

However, the win did little to impress the pollsters, and just like last week, Kentucky is nowhere near the AP Poll or the USA Today Coaches’ Poll top-25. Kentucky continues to receive no points in the AP Poll [Link], but improved from four to nine points in the Coaches’ Poll [Link]. That moves the Cats from No. 39 to No. 37 if you count the teams in the ‘others receiving votes’ column.

CBS Sports. The Cats rose from No. 32 to No. 30 in the CBSSports.com 120 [Link]. That site’s updated bowl predictions still place Kentucky in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, against Kansas [Link]. 

SI.com. The Cats moved the most here, jumping from No. 44 to No. 37 in SI.com’s Power Rankings [Link]. Kentucky remains absent from SI.com’s bowl predictions, which haven’t been updated since preseason.

FOX Sports.* Kentucky is ranked No. 32 in the CollegeFootballNews.com rankings at FOXSports.com [Link].

ESPN. Somewhat surprisingly, the WorldWideLeader doesn’t do a 1-120 ranking, but senior writers Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach update their bowl predictions weekly. Schlabach has moved the Cats from a matchup with Southern Miss in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, to a matchup with Kansas State in the Independence Bowl. Maisel has moved Kentucky from a matchup with Kansas State in the Independence Bowl (the matchup his colleague predicts this week) to a matchup with Florida State in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee. (College football fans in Kentucky might also be curious to know that Schlabach has moved Louisville from the Sugar Bowl to the Gator Bowl, but Maisel still has the Cards in the Sugar Bowl) [Link].

USA Today.** Jeff Sagarin’s rankings place the Cats at No. 30, with a rating of 80.65 [Link].

Gennerally, then, we’d say these sites see Kentucky as a top-35 team headed for a third-tier bowl. (In our off-the-top-of-our-heads ranking system, BCS bowls would be Tier I, other New Year’s Day bowls would be Tier II, and the rest would be Tier III). That seems about right. Of course, if the Cats pull the upset on Saturday, we’d expect to see some Outback Bowl projections (or, if we dare to be so bold, Citrus Bowl projections — ha! we aspire to that which Spurrier deplores!). But, judging from this weeks’ polls, a win against Louisville still might not get the Cats in either top-25 poll.

Onward and upward!

*No, we didn’t neglect FOX Sports’ rankings last week because Jay Glazer is a muppet. We were simply unaware FOX Sports provided rankings. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 7:27 am and is filed under Allenby for Heisman!, College Football, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.