WildcatChat Members Predict Kentucky to go 8-4 this Season

The WildcatChat group at Kentucky Sports Report took a look at this year's football schedule and made game by game predictions based on the probability of winning each game. Based upon those probabilities, the group projects a 8-4 record, barely over a 7-5 record.

Let's take a look at what the members saw for each game.

Kentucky opens with Ball State at home, the first of three consecutive non-conference home contest. Each game is projected to be an easy win for Kentucky, with WildcatChat projecting a 93% probability that Kentucky would win this game. That would make Kentucky about a 17.5 point favorite, according to the oddsmakers.

Game number two has Kentucky hosting Eastern Kentucky. The WildcatChat group projects a 95.9% probability that Kentucky will win this game, making Kentucky about a 18.5 point favorite.

The final game before entering SEC play is against Akron, and again, an easy 94.5% probability that Kentucky will win the game, about an 18 point favorite.

The first SEC game is also a road contest in Nashville, against Vanderbilt. The Commodores upset Kentucky last year, and Kentucky fans hope for revenge this season. Although the probability is still fairly high at 74.5% that Kentucky will win the game, it is certainly no lock, putting Kentucky about an 8.5 point favorite.

If the probabilities hold true, Kentucky would entered the game against Florida at home in the fifth contest with a perfect 4-0 record. The WildcatChat has a 65.1% probability projected that Kentucky wins this game as well, making Kentucky about a 5.5 point favorite.

Although each and every one of those first 5 games we project a probability that Kentucky will win, the math actually works out to Kentucky having a 4-1 record after those initial 5 contest, and then traveling to Athens to face perhaps the nation's top football team, Georgia. WildcatChat does not give Kentucky much of a chance, with a 14.1% probability of a victory perhaps being even a little optimistic. This would put Kentucky at more than a two touchdown underdog in the game according to the oddsmakers.

Returning home Kentucky will then have their fourth SEC contest, a key battle against Missouri. WildcatChat has a 67% probability that Kentucky wins this game, making Kentucky about a 6.5 point favorite.

Hosting Tennessee against the first of four games that are basically either a tossup or Kentucky is a decided underdog. WildcatChat members show a 45.5% probability that Kentucky defeats the Vols in Lexington, making Tennessee about a 2.5 point favorite.

We then traveled to Starkville and play Mississippi State, where WildcatChat shows a 51.9% probability we can win that game on the road. That would mean Kentucky is about a 1.5 point favorite in that game.

If Georgia isn't the biggest game of the season, then Alabama is, which is also the next game on the schedule. This game in Lexington, we believe, is a 25.6% probability for Kentucky emerging with a win. That puts Alabama about an 8.5 point favorite.

The final two games are both on the road, and in the two-game road trip begins in Columbia South Carolina, with South Carolina being about a 1 point favorite according to WildcatChat members who show Kentucky with a 48.5% probability of winning this game.

Our final contest of the regular-season is against cross-state rival Louisville, where WildcatChat members show a 78.5% probability of Kentucky escaping with a win. Oddsmakers would call that a 10.5 point favorite for Kentucky.