ESPN’s FPI predicts outcome for every game on Kentucky’s 2025 schedule
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Mark Stoops has elevated the Kentucky Wildcats‘ football program to new heights over his 12-year tenure in Lexington. Despite this, he enters the 2025 campaign with some increasingly warm buttocks. And ESPN’s Football Power Index doesn’t forecast sunshine and roses in what could be an unlucky 13th season.
Kentucky ranks 43rd in the country in FPI. Specifically in the SEC, though, the Wildcats slot 14th, ahead of only Vanderbilt and Mississippi State. The FPI predicts Kentucky will go 5.2-6.8, meaning it expects Stoops and Co. to miss out on a bowl game for the second consecutive year. The Wildcats reached eight straight bowl games from 2016-23, so this trend would seemingly not be good for Stoops’ outlook.
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However, returning to a bowl isn’t impossible. The FPI gives Kentucky a 39.1% chance of pulling out 6 wins. But finding them may be a difficult task against what’s been labeled a top-10 slate, in terms of difficulty, by some outlets. Right now, the Wildcats are favored by FPI to win just 3 games — you can see the full schedule prediction below — and the writing’s already on the wall for an upset in one of those.
Here is Kentucky’s win probability for every game on the schedule, according to the FPI:
- Aug. 30 vs. Toledo – 81.9%
- Sept. 6 vs. Ole Miss – 29.0%
- Sept. 13 vs. Eastern Michigan – 91.3%
- Sept. 27 at South Carolina – 21.7%
- Oct. 4 at Georgia – 9.9%
- Oct. 18 vs. Texas – 13.8%
- Oct. 25 vs. Tennessee – 25.2%
- Nov. 1 at Auburn – 29.2%
- Nov. 8 vs. Florida – 30.9%
- Nov. 15 vs. Tennessee Tech – 98.7%
- Nov. 22 at Vanderbilt – 44.7%
- Nov. 29 at Louisville – 41.5%
A victory over Louisville two years ago nearly landed Stoops the Texas A&M gig. Now, without a win there, he may be unemployed come December. If Zach Calzada isn’t the man, there could be a long swan song in Lexington.
