Yes, you read that headline right. After a few weeks of Kentucky football popping up in many playoff projections from different media outlets around the country, it's now official. On the first College Football Playoff projection, the Kentucky Wildcats have made the 12-team bracket, it was revealed on the rankings show Tuesday.
Your Kentucky Wildcats are ranked #6 out of the 12 teamswho are currently projected to make the playoff. If things started today, they would host #11 Notre Dame in Kroger Field for the first round. It hasn't been an easy road to get to this point by any means for Will Stein and his team. After the loss to Alabama in week two, it felt like, for the most part, that BBN got their hopes crushed. But since then, Kentucky has rattled off six-straight wins that include multiple top 10 wins and two gritty road wins, one of those being a 17-point comeback.
How has Will Stein been able to get his team to accomplish such a historic start to the season? He talked about that a few weeks ago when asked.
"I just go back to like what we do on a day-by-day basis. It's how these guys respond. It's really how they work throughout the week. So it's hard to say it's just this or just that. I think it's just a culmination of the last eight months and putting in the work with really good players. I think we can all see that we have really good talent, top-end talent on our roster. Got to continue to build depth. That's something as we keep pushing this program forward, is how do we get the next group of guys to be able to go in there and perform at that same level? And then, I mean, I really think we have really good coaches too. I mean, what Joe's done, Parker, Jay, all of our staff, the work that they put in, the messaging that they put in, it's allowed us to keep fighting and then keep finding ways to win."
Oct 24, 2026; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Kentucky Wildcats head coach Will Stein celebrates an interception during the third quarter against the Vanderbilt Commodoresat Kroger Field. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
With Kentucky now popping up in playoff projections, let's revisit an old quote from Stein in his introductory press conference back in December that really hits different now.
"The vision is really simple. It's to win," Stein said at his introductory press conference Wednesday. "I didn't come here to be average. I didn't come here to be mediocre, I came here to win. And to win championships. I've won at every single level that I've been at. High school, college, and now the goal is to win here. Not win five years down the road, 10 years down the road, to do it now. And the way that you do that is you work. Success is not free. Rent is due every damn day that we're here, and we're gonna work to get that done to make Big Blue Nation proud, make our players proud, and to do it the right way."
He's certainly backed up that statement so far and now, he's got his team projected to be in the playoff with four important games left in the regular season.
Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on Facebook and YouTube for the latest news.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/kentucky as Kentucky football is officially projected in the College Football Playoff .
