With more than half of the season complete Kentucky's football team is 3-4 overall and 1-4 in the SEC.

That means the Wildcats have some work to do before we talk about a fourth consecutive bowl game. The situation at quarterback has complicated things.

Here's a look at where things stand with Kentucky's five remaining opponents as we try to forecast UK's chances in those games.

10/26 - Missouri (Lexington, Ky., 7:30 pm)

Before the season Missouri was a trendy choice to emerge as the darkhorse competitor in the East, or at least to finish as a strong second in the division. That was because Kelly Bryant transferred in to quarterback a team that returned a lot of quality players all over the field. The hype made sense on paper, especially when one gave their results last year a closer look.

Hopes were quickly dashed in a shocking season-opening loss to Wyoming. Or so it seemed. Missouri rallied to win five consecutive games. Included in that stretch: a 38-7 throttling of West Virginia and two SEC wins by two or more scores apiece.

But the Tigers haven't made much sense this year and their loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday was one of the SEC's most surprising results of the season thus far. The Commodores have often played better when Derek Mason has come under fire and maybe that's happening but Vandy has been one of the worst Power Five teams in college football this year and they shut down the Mizzou offense.

Statistically Missouri is pretty much off the charts this season, because they have dominated the games they haven't lost. But going forward, against a tougher schedule than they have seen to date, will the Tigers be more the team that has trounced foes or the team that has two head-scratching losses?

As of right now the Tigers seem a fairly safe bet for a top three finish in the East but no team that loses to Vanderbilt should be picked to win the division ahead of UGA or Florida.

11/9 - Tennessee (Lexington, Ky.)

The season couldn't have started any worse for Tennessee. In fact, home losses to Georgia State and BYU amounted to arguably the worst start to a football season in the history of the Volunteer program. In only his second year, Jeremy Pruitt was already on the hot seat.

We should probably think about the loss to Georgia State as separate because losing to BYU by a field goal isn't in the same stratosphere. Tennessee's high point this year was a 20-10 victory against Mississippi State two weekends ago. In that game UT's defense shut down the Bulldogs in Neyland Stadium.

But UT has also lost decisively to Florida (34-3), Georgia (43-14), and Alabama (35-13) over the last month. We should probably think about UGA a little differently given their struggles the last two weeks. But losing to Florida by that margin is an ugly outcome. UT actually played fairly well against Alabama.

At this point it is safe to say that Tennessee has not yet thrown in the towel on the season and they are better than they showed Week 1. But this is a team that struggles mightily when it comes to scoring points. They're similar to Kentucky in that respect. One variable here is the bye week for Kentucky before this game. UT doesn't get its second bye until after the UK game.

11/16 - at Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.)

Just when you think you have Vanderbilt figured out they go and beat Missouri in a result that doesn't make any sense based on the four or five weeks before that game was played.

Coming into the season Vanderbilt had questions at quarterback, the offensive line, and all across the defense. What they had were established and talented players at running back, receiver, and tight end, so the question was how the Commodores could allow their skill players to shine with potential problems elsewhere.

For most of this year Vanderbilt has been terrible. Even after defeating Missouri, the Commodores have been outscored 34-18 on average this season. They don't stop the run very well, opponents average a whopping 6.83 yards per play with an astronomical 156.98 passer rating, and pretty much nothing has gone well. Star back Ke'Shawn Vaughn (703 yards, six TD) has been one of the very few bright spots and he has been one of the SEC's better players, as expected.

The worry here has to be that Kentucky might catch a resurgent Vanderbilt team at a bad time. We'll find out more about their trajectory over the next three weeks when the 'Dores draw South Carolina and Florida after a bye this Saturday.

Mo Hasan saw his first quarterback action of the season against Missouri and had better results than either Riley Neal or Deuce Wallace to that point in the season.

11/23 - TN-Martin (Lexington, Ky.)

The Skyhawks are 5-2 and have won four games in a row since a 28-14 loss to Southern Illinois on September 14th. In their only game against a Power Five opponent this season they lost to Florida 45-0.

Opponents have not run the ball especially well against UTM (123.6 ypg). This is a team that starts fast, having outscored opponents 73-28 in the first quarter this season. Running back Peyton Logan is on track for a 1,000 yard season on the ground and quarterback John Bachus is efficient even if he doesn't put up gaudy numbers.

11/30 - Louisville (Lexington, Ky.)

Depending on who you ask you will get different answers when it comes to assessing the Cardinals this year. They lost to a mediocre Florida State team and were handled by both of the best teams (ND, Clemson) on their schedule. None of that is embarrassing. Louisville has won its four other games, including contests against conference goes Wake Forest and Boston College, in close games.

What is clear is that Louisville is much improved compared to last year. That is not up for debate. First-year head coach Scott Satterfield has orchestrated an impressive first-year turnaround effort that started with getting the players on board and buying in.

UofL scores and surrenders 33.4 points per game through seven contests so the offense has been much better than the defense. Three quarterbacks -- Malik Cunningham, Jawon Pass, and most recently Evan Conley have seen action this season, each with varying levels of success. Louisville has a nice corps of skill players on offense and the Cardinals have done a good job of getting the ball to those players so far.

They have been a very poor team defending the pass (18 TD, 5 INT) but it remains to be seen whether Kentucky will have a passing game even by that point in the season.

Remaining games ranked in order of difficulty (hardest to easiest) ...

1. Missouri

2. Louisville

3. Tennessee

4. Vanderbilt

5. UT-Martin