Kentucky Football Cracks the Top 10 in Both Polls: No. 8 in the Coaches, No. 9 in the AP

Kentucky football is a top-10 team again, and now it's official in both major polls. The Wildcats moved up four spots to No. 8 in the US LBM Coaches Poll released Sunday, Oct. 25, after Saturday night's 34-17 win over Vanderbilt in Lexington. The AP Top 25 followed a few hours later with UK at No. 9, up three spots from No. 12.

UK sits at 7-1 overall and 5-1 in the SEC, with 1,318 poll points. The Courier Journal notes it's the first time the Wildcats have been in the coaches' top 10 since Week 5 of the 2022 season, when they were also No. 8. That matches their best spot in this poll since September 2022.

The shuffle above them helped too. BYU lost and fell from No. 3 to No. 9, Texas Tech dropped from 5 to 14, and Tennessee slid from 11 to 17 after losing to South Carolina. Georgia (No. 3) is the only SEC team ranked ahead of Kentucky.

Our Take: This is earned. Will Stein's team has won six straight and sits alone atop the SEC standings. The bye week comes at a good time, but the number that matters is still ahead: the Nov. 7 trip to Knoxville. Win there and No. 8 starts to look low.

AP update: The Week 9 AP Top 25 is out, and Kentucky checks in at No. 9, up from No. 12 last week. That puts the 7-1 Wildcats inside the top 10 of both polls heading into the bye.

Sources: ESPN rankings (AP and Coaches), On3/KSR (AP top-10 report), USA Today Coaches Poll, Courier Journal, On3/KSR