Vanderbilt at Kentucky
Kentucky (#12, 6‑1) hosts Vanderbilt (3‑4). The market has Kentucky favored by 10.5. The model gives Kentucky a 73% shot. Kentucky’s offense is at the 83rd percentile on success rate; Vanderbilt’s defense is at the 24th.
How they got here
Last three games
Vanderbilt · 3-4
Rated 45th in our preseason ratings, 72nd now, down 27 spots.
Three straight losses.
W 35-31 vs NC State #37 of 668
won by 4 as a 3-point favorite
Last three games
Kentucky · 6-1
Rated 102nd in our preseason ratings, 39th now, up 63 spots.
Three straight wins, capped by a 8-point win over Oklahoma as a 7-point underdog.
Biggest mismatch: Kentucky’s success rate against Vanderbilt, 59 points
Each row ranks the two sides among all teams. The longer the line, the bigger the mismatch.
Kentucky’s success rate against Vanderbilt’s defense
Kentucky offense, 83rd percentile · Vanderbilt defense, 24th
Kentucky’s explosive plays against Vanderbilt’s defense
Kentucky offense, 16th percentile · Vanderbilt defense, 51st
Kentucky’s rushing EPA against Vanderbilt’s defense
Kentucky offense, 62nd percentile · Vanderbilt defense, 28th
What’s at stake
Vanderbilt
- Vanderbilt needs 3 more wins in the final 4 to reach bowl eligibility — 25% to get there with a win here, 5% with a loss.
- Vanderbilt is the program that is not supposed to be here, and is.
Kentucky
- Kentucky sits at 40% to make the playoff — 45% with a win here, 25% with a loss.
- Kentucky is the basketball school whose football program arrived in the 2010s and now refuses to leave.
The series
Kentucky leads the series 49-42-4
95 meetings since 1906 · Vanderbilt has won the last 2
- 2025Vanderbilt 45-17
- 2024Vanderbilt 20-13
- 2023Kentucky 45-28
- 2022Vanderbilt 24-21
- 2021Kentucky 34-17
Each line is Kentucky’s chance to win through that meeting. Kentucky is 1-2 in the meetings since 2018 that were still close in the fourth quarter.
Face-off
What each fanbase carries into this one.
Vanderbilt
The chip · vs the national mediaEvery preseason poll buries Vanderbilt by reflex, and the fanbase has heard 'the scheme called it a scheduling accident' so often it became the program's dry punchline. They say 2025 wasn't luck — it was the year the math finally listened.
What this game touches
The thirty-nine-year wait between bowls. Before James Franklin's 2011-2013 window, Vanderbilt had not been to a bowl since the Reagan administration — the long stretch of seasons that taught the fanbase to brace for the floor, and made 2025's 10 wins feel less like a result than a vindication.
Kentucky
The chip · vs the national mediaFans are sick of hearing their school described as a basketball place that tolerates football — they remember the Stoops climb made the league take Kentucky seriously, and they refuse to be filed back under afterthought just because one era ended.
What this game touches
Firing Mark Stoops. Stoops left as the winningest coach in Kentucky football history after 13 years that dragged the program from doormat to ranked teams and bowl streaks — but back-to-back bowl-less seasons, capped by a 5-7 finish in 2025, ended it. Letting go of the man who built modern Kentucky football is a wound even for fans who wanted the change.
Best players
Vanderbilt
- C.J. Heard (S) · 53 tackles
- Junior Sherrill (WR) · 628 receiving yards
- Bryan Longwell (LB) · 50 tackles
Kentucky
- Grant Godfrey (LB) · 67 tackles
- Jordan Castell (DB) · 57 tackles
- Ty Bryant (DB) · 53 tackles
The betting line, and the fans
Kentucky fans are feeling it about like the typical fanbase this week (57th among FBS fanbases), in line with the numbers.
Kentucky favored by 10.5 · Total 52.5
Kentucky by 10.5: where a favorite like this usually runs
Half of games8 in 10 games
Kentucky’s chance through the game, if this goes like the 387 games since 2025 with a favorite of 7.5 to 14.5 points.
Weather at kickoff
Mild. No coat needed.
Vanderbilt at Kentucky · Saturday, Oct. 24 · 7:30 pm ET · SEC Network · Kroger Field.
- 60°feels like
- 0%average rain chance
- 5 mphwind gusts
- 98weather score, Comfortable
Forecast, read Fri Oct 23, 9:20 am ET. It can change until kickoff.
Weather score: 0 to 100, higher is better, for the first 3 hours and 20 minutes of the game. Ideal is 100, Comfortable 90 to 99, Mixed 75 to 89, Rough 50 to 74, Harsh under 50. Gusts count toward the score (up to 15 points). Average rain chance: the hourly chances of rain over the first 3 hours and 20 minutes, averaged.
This game among this Saturday's 33 TV games with a forecast
- Baylor at Kansas: 100, Ideal
- Boston College at Georgia Tech: 100, Ideal
- Colorado at Oklahoma State: 100, Ideal
- Eastern Michigan at Ohio: 100, Ideal
- Indiana at Michigan: 100, Ideal
- Iowa State at Arizona: 100, Ideal
- Kansas State at Arizona State: 100, Ideal
- LSU at Auburn: 100, Ideal
- Michigan State at UCLA: 100, Ideal
- North Texas at Navy: 100, Ideal
- Oklahoma at Mississippi State: 100, Ideal
- Oregon at Illinois: 100, Ideal
- Tennessee at South Carolina: 100, Ideal
- Texas A&M at Alabama: 100, Ideal
- Texas Tech at Cincinnati: 100, Ideal
- USC at Wisconsin: 100, Ideal
- UTSA at Tulane: 100, Ideal
- West Virginia at TCU: 100, Ideal
- Western Michigan at Toledo: 100, Ideal
- California at SMU: 99, Comfortable
- Vanderbilt at Kentucky: 98, Comfortable
- Boise State at Washington State: 97, Comfortable
- Iowa at Minnesota: 97, Comfortable
- Utah State at Texas State: 96, Comfortable
- Ole Miss at Texas: 95, Comfortable
- Syracuse at North Carolina: 95, Comfortable
- Virginia Tech at Clemson: 95, Comfortable
- Houston at Utah: 93, Comfortable
- North Dakota State at New Mexico: 93, Comfortable
- San Diego State at Colorado State: 91, Comfortable
- BYU at UCF: 88, Mixed
- Pittsburgh at Miami: 85, Mixed
- Rice at Florida Atlantic: 85, Mixed
Tap a dot to read the game.
Forecast, read Fri Oct 23, 3:20 am to 9:20 am ET (each game has its own read time). It can change until kickoff.
If it kicked off at
Typical at Kroger Field: noon Saturdays score 90, 3:30 pm 87, 7:30 pm 90.
- noon: 90, Comfortable
- 3:30 pm: 87, Mixed
- 7:30 pm: 90, Comfortable
Typical weather score at each kickoff time.
Typical means the average of regular-season Saturdays at this stadium, 2018 to 2025. It is not a forecast for this game.
Home field
Kentucky is worth +6.1 points (±4.1) more at home than on the road since 2018 — top third of FBS, 81st percentile.
60% at home, 45% on the road against FBS opponents (32-21 home, 18-22 away).
Our model gives every stadium the same flat 2.3-point home edge (why); the books use about 3. Against the closing line this stadium reads +0.7 at home vs. away over 101 games — inside the ±6.8 noise, so the flat number is the honest one here.
Night kickoff — historically worth about half a point more to the home side against the number, and not much more than that. The visitors travel about 182 miles to get here.
Season profile
Week by week
Kentucky
- Wk 3Wat Texas A&M31-21
- Wk 4Wvs South Alabama45-21
- Wk 5Wat South Carolina35-34
- Wk 6Wvs LSU35-34
- Wk 7Wat Oklahoma21-13
Vanderbilt
- Wk 3Wvs NC State35-31
- Wk 4Lat Auburn15-21
- Wk 5Lat Georgia14-38
- Wk 6Lvs Ole Miss17-52
- Wk 7Lvs Arkansas21-31
Power rating by week
Kentucky is rated 5.2 points ahead as of week 8. Our power rating by week; higher is better.
The market
The spread moved 1 point toward Kentucky.
Spread: −9.5 → −10.5
The books’ cut: 4.2%, the margin built into the odds
Conference standings
Place in the conference, then conference record.
- Kentucky2nd4-1
- Vanderbilt16th0-4
Last meeting in our History pages
- Vanderbilt 24, Kentucky 21Nov 12, 2022