Having never won the SEC East, can Kentucky finish 3rd in its farewell season?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The four-day blab fest known as Southeastern Conference Football Media Days opened Monday morning in Nashville, which had to be a jarring financial kick in the shins to the folks in Birmingham and Atlanta who have always hosted the beloved event.

There will be talk about NIL reform. There will be questions about whether Bobby Petrino can save Jimbo Fisher's job at Texas A&M. There will be debate about conference realignment and the eight- or nine-game conference schedule.

But let's get to the local question that really matters:

Will the entire 32-season stretch of the SEC East Division competition come (in 1992) and go (no more divisions when Oklahoma and Texas ride into the league next season) without Kentucky winning the East and crashing the SEC title game in Atlanta?

The folks in Las Vegas hung 6.5 victories as the over/under win total on Mark Stoops' team this fall. That's not the number of a division winner.

Considering the Wildcats sit as a 26.5-point favorite to defeat Ball State in their season opener and also figure dominate non-SEC games against Eastern Kentucky and Akron, that means reasonable people believe the Wildcats will win no more than four conference games.

So the answer remains no unless Georgia coach Kirby Smart escapes to run a Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraskan and Josh Heupel takes a spot managing the brisket at Buc-ee's.

If anything is certain from the SEC East preseason predictions I've uncovered from five sources, it is this:

Georgia, the back-to-back defending national champion, is the unanimous pick to win the division. Even the 11 speeding tickets Smart's players have earned since mid-January can't stop the Bulldogs.

The unanimity stretched into second place, too. Phil Steele, Athlon Sports, Lindy's Sports, ProFootballFocus and ESPN's College Football Power Index ranked Tennessee No. 2 in the division.

After that ...

... the news is encouraging for Kentucky.

Assessing points on a 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 system from those five outlets, this is the consensus SEC East outlook.

1. Georgia (35 points five firsts).
2. Tennessee (30 points, five seconds).
3. Kentucky (21 points, two thirds; two fourths and a fifth).
4. South Carolina (19 points, two thirds; one fourth, one fifth, one sixth).
5. Florida (17 points, one third; two fourths; two fifths).
6. Missouri (11 points; four sixths, one fifth).
7. Vanderbilt (5 points, five sevenths).

My first reaction after compiling those numbers was if that's how the season unfolds, expect a coaching search in Florida in October.

My second reaction was the two most important games on the Kentucky schedule remains (in order) Sept. 30 when Florida visits and Nov. 18 when the Wildcats travel to South Carolina.

Anything less than a 4-0 start should register as a colossal disappointment at Kroger Field.

Ball State finished 5-7 last season, lost to Tennessee by 49 and stumbled in its last three games.

Eastern Kentucky is a solid FCS program. but you cannot lose a home game to an FCS program.

Akron finished 2-10, getting outscored 115-6 by Michigan State and Tennessee.

And Vanderbilt, well, oops ... Vanderbilt stormed into Lexington and toppled Kentucky last season, 24-21.

Then Vandy lost its top running back, Ray Davis, to Kentucky, and the Commodores showed up as No. 93 in Phil Steele's power poll and No. 73 in ESPN's FPI Index.

You cannot rationalize back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt.

Game five is a legitimate swing game. The Wildcats have won two straight and three of their last five against the sagging Gators' brand.

(Definition of sagging: Florida has won more SEC East titles than any program — 13. But seven came in the first nine seasons of division play. Georgia failed to win the SEC East until the Bulldogs' 11th try, but has 10 titles, including five of the last six. Tennessee has five titles, Missouri two and South Carolina one. Vandy joins UK on empty.)

Kentucky has to get to 5-0 and 2-0 in the SEC to fulfill its grandest expectations. Like UK, Florida lost its quarterback, Anthony Richardson, to the NFL. Unlike UK, the Gators did not replace him with somebody as talented and experieced as Devin Leary, the transfer from North Carolina State.

Over its final six SEC games, the Wildcats face three likely defeats — Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. They should handle Missouri at home. That's 3-3.

They'll have to win road games against Mississippi State (breaking in a new coach) and South Carolina (on the rise) to deliver a winning record in conference play.

The game against Shane Beamer's Gamecocks sits in a difficult spot on the schedule. For South Carolina, it is the third straight home game, after Jacksonville State and Vanderbilt. Kentucky preps for South Carolina by playing Nick Saban and Alabama.

Kentucky, remember, earned four first-place votes to win the East at SEC Media Day last season. That was more votes than anybody but Georgia. Odds are the Wildcats will snag a vote or two this season.

But in their farewell to the SEC East, Kentucky looks like a team with a ceiling of third place and a floor of fifth.