Kentucky football plummets down the ESPN FPI Rankings

The Kentucky Wildcats suffered a frustrating loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores. Even though the Wildcats were coming out of their bye week, they looked unprepared and undisciplined. While the Commodores will get the official win, Kentucky really beat themselves. It was a game riddled with miscues, penalties, and lack of execution, which plummeted the Wildcats down the ESPN FPI poll.

Quick refresher, if you don't know what the ESPN FPI poll is, here is how ESPN describes it, "The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team's performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Projected results are based on 20,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule."

As the Wildcats headed into the Vanderbilt game, they were in the top 25 of that computer-generated ranking. They are squarely out of that now, at 32. After their ugly performance, they fell seven spots in the rankings and now have a score of 7.8. This is still nearly 8 points better than the average team, but it is nowhere near impressive.

ESPN FPI still gives them a 49.7% chance to win 6 games, which would make them bowl-eligible, but only a 0.1% chance to make the playoffs. Cue the dumb and dumber voice: " So you're saying there's a chance?!" This isn't good. It may be better than average, but it's not good.

Where do they sit among other SEC teams? They are now 13th in the SEC in ESPN FPI. The teams ranking below them are Vanderbilt (shocking, I know), Auburn, and Mississippi State. According to this model, every other team is considered a better team. Honestly, that feels right after what we saw against Vanderbilt.

They take on Florida this week who has an ESPN FPI score of 8.7 and are ranked 27th in FPI.