Using ESPN’s FPI (Football Power Index) as a guide, Kentucky has only a 15.9 percent chance to beat Florida on Saturday.

KENTUCKY’S ROAD STRUGGLES PLUMMET WIN PROBABILITY AGAINST FLORIDA

The Kentucky Wildcats will leave Lexington for the first time in 2014 for a showdown in the Swamp with the Florida Gators Saturday night. Most fans know about Kentucky’s 27-game losing streak to Florida beginning in 1987, but the Cats’ low win probability is just as much a product of their recent struggles against every team they face outside of the Bluegrass.

Kentucky hasn’t beaten any team on the road since its 2010 season opener against Louisville, losing 17 straight games away from home in that time. The last time the Wildcats won a road game outside the state of Kentucky? A late-season win on the road against Georgia in November 2009.

Until Kentucky proves it can be as successful on the road as it was at home the first two weeks of the current season (wins over UT Martin and Ohio), it’ll be hard for anyone to believe UK has a real shot in the Swamp.

Florida won its season opener over Eastern Michigan at home last weekend, and won three of its first four games at home last season before the wheels fell off and the Gators lost seven straight games to end the year.

Neither team has played anyone of real value thus far in 2014, so it is difficult to project how either squad will look in its SEC opener Saturday. However, history is on Florida’s side, through both its current win streak over UK and the Cats’ current losing in road games.

It will be a challenge for a young Kentucky team to go down to Gainesville and compete with a team fully-stocked with four- and five-star recruits.