Will Stein and Kentucky should be outright offended by wild new SEC win projections

Expectations for Will Stein's first season at Kentucky are far from outlandish. After Mark Stoops' final, no-bowl season, the Big Blue Nation is expecting little beyond baseline improvement. Win a few big games and keep recruiting at a high level, and we'll be just fine. But that ground-floor optimism isn't shared by folks on the outside looking in.

Michael Bratton, also known as 'SEC Mike' on social media, shared a prediction for Stein's first season in the conference that is nothing short of offensive, at least as far as I'm concerned. Lumping Kentucky in with Arkansas and Vanderbilt, Bratton suggested that those three teams won't win six SEC games combined this season. Yes, combined.

"Those three - Arkansas, Kentucky, Vanderbilt - they will not combine to win six SEC games this year," Bratton said. His co-host, Shane, would shortly point out that Kentucky is "mad at ya."

You're right, Shane. Unless I'm on the wrong side of social media, I haven't seen a single Kentucky fan this diabolically low on the team all offseason, even before Stein put his roster together. This is a special kind of pessimism, even if Bratton is right in pointing out that the Wildcats face a gauntlet of a schedule this fall.

The only difference is, I believe the Cats have the ability to pull off a pivotal upset or two along the way.

The Cats' Ability to Upset the SEC

I should preface this by saying that anyone and everyone, including myself, who makes a prediction at this point is engaging in pure guesswork. We have no idea how this Kentucky team (or any team, for that matter) looks on the field beyond one spring game and a bunch of practice clips.

But the key to me is, as always, the quarterback. The BBN has every reason to believe that Kenny Minchey will be the most effective signal caller in Lexington since Devin Leary, at least, and that's assuming he doesn't break through his ceiling of general competency.

Yeah, sure, he technically lost the starting job at Notre Dame last season; that's why he ended up here, after all. But he lost it at the last second to CJ Carr who, by all accounts, is well on his way to NFL relevancy. A move to the SEC and the benefit of a starting role should do Minchey a ton of good.

And it should also separate Kentucky from the bottom of the SEC. The Wildcats aren't going to come out and sweep the conference board, but I do believe that this is a team that can comfortably eclipse the 2-3 win mark in the conference.

Nothing wrong with a little hope in the boys in blue, I say.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow