A cat is supposed to have nine lives. Kentucky football is now ranked ninth in the country, and the Wildcats keep spending theirs one Saturday at a time.

After another Caturday at Kroger Field, this one a 34-17 rally past Vanderbilt, Kentucky (7-1, 5-1 SEC) jumped three spots to No. 9 in Sunday’s AP Top 25. Three polls ago, the Wildcats weren’t in it at all. They have since won four straight, including overtime games at South Carolina and against LSU, a road win at Oklahoma and now the Commodores. That isn’t a fluke. It’s a team that keeps winning games it could easily have lost.

At the top, the poll is quiet. Miami is still No. 1 and still untouched at 7-0, with 59 first-place votes, and it visits North Carolina on Oct. 31. Ohio State is No. 2, and Georgia climbed two spots to No. 3, making the 6-1 Bulldogs the highest-ranked SEC team in the poll.

The standings tell a different story. The poll is about résumés and reputations, and the standings are arithmetic. By the arithmetic, Kentucky leads the SEC at 5-1, with Georgia second at 4-1 in league play. Kirby Smart’s team holds the higher ranking, but the Wildcats are in front where it counts.

The bye week makes that lead look fragile. Georgia plays Florida on Oct. 31, and a win would make the Bulldogs 5-1 in the SEC, even with Kentucky, which will be sitting out. A bye is the one Saturday you can’t lose and the one you can’t win, and Kentucky has to watch while others catch up.

The distance in the poll is small, too. Kentucky has 1,185 points, 326 behind Georgia and only 140 behind No. 8 BYU, with Indiana, Notre Dame, Utah and UCLA all in between. The top 10 is packed tightly enough that one weekend can reshuffle it, and that works in both directions.

South Carolina also picked up 8 votes, so the SEC has nine ranked teams and a tenth on the doorstep.

Will Stein’s team now has two weeks to heal and plan before its next test. On Nov. 7, Kentucky heads to Rocky Top to face a No. 16 Tennessee team that is also idle on Oct. 31 and will be rested and ready. The Wildcats will arrive in Knoxville as a top-10 team with a spot at the head of the SEC table to defend. That’s a very different position from the one they held three weeks ago, when nobody was talking about them at all.

Nine lives, the saying goes. Kentucky has used a few already and has plenty left.