It has been a great season, and looking forward to all of the Bowls now, but looking more forward to some UK Basketball GO BIG BLUE

It is looking more like the National Champion will again come from the SEC West.

Don’t get me wrong about the win. I am ecstatic that UK won. The streak has been 25 years too long so this win is so satisfying on many fronts. First and foremost beating anything with the color orange as a school color is very satisfying. I kept seeing the face of Mr. Dooley on camera yesterday with that gray jacket on. It didn’t look so bad until the camera showed a full torso of him wearing those ugly orange pants and it was like, ugh why did you put such ugly things on for your pants. The person or persons that choose that color were insane at the best. The people that choose to keep it their school color are even worse because they see ugly splattered all over the place and do nothing about it.

Yeah the win is doubly satisfying because now we won’t have to listen to it a million times over and over like broken records reloading to punish you. This time it is their turn and it will be even worse for them because they are the team, coach and administration that let it happen. They have to live with that for the rest of their lives and I am so happy for them! I do feel bad for the coach, because he seems to be a decent sort of guy so I don’t hate him, because as coach he had to wear that color. I wish him well in his future assistant coach job(s) at another institution, because this will surely be his last year at UT. I bet he has had to hire extra security for their safety. I can only imagine the death threats he may have already received, because as the announcers said during the Bama and Auburn game there would be repercussions from that loss.

Now back to the game…what really happened to secure the win? I mean really!? UK is horrible and there is no way an offense so bad the coaches wouldn’t even attempt a forward pass could beat any division 1 team. The defense played their hearts out, but even that had many holes in it all game long, but UT couldn’t take advantage of it. Their quarterback is so slow he moves in slow motion. I kept wondering why our guys couldn’t splatter the guy all over the field.

The last 1:47 was terrifying to watch, because that is the point where the clock was stopped to attend to a downed referee. Isn’t that the place during the game when UK usually has something bad happen to them?  Certainly, the clock was their enemy at that point of the game! UK desperately needed the clock to run really fast, but there it was stopped giving UT time to settle down a bit and call a good play, but even more importantly to them gave them more time.

I just knew fate had just intervened once again to deny UK the win, but somehow it didn’t. Time stood still for an eternity and I was screaming at the referrer’s to start the clock, but they wouldn’t for the longest time.  Finally, play resumed with a pass to the sideline and we all know the usual ending to that story all to well don’t we, however;  from out of nowhere Danny Trevathan almost intercepted a pass to a receiver, but he didn’t.  I knew then fate was torturing us for the dramatic letdown and our 26 years of hope was going to crash to the ground by one fateful play.  There was no doubt we were going to lose, but I had to watch anyway.  I just knew the next pass was going for a touchdown or close enough for an easy field goal to tie the game. We surely didn’t want another extra period for another quirky meltdown.  Then the fateful play unfolds as I held my breath while the ball sailed right down the middle of the field.  Sure enough fate intervened and some how some way the pass was picked off allowing UK to run out the clock securing the win.

All I can say is the snowball must have had a special coat on it yesterday, because the fire was hot and orange in color.  Now the UT administrators need more than a snowball to put out that fire.

Yes indeed, that win is sweet for the color BLUE!  Can I breathe now?

It was a total team effort from all the players, and they along with us will remember it all their lives.

The game revolved around Matt Roark and he played the game of his life. In the future when we talk about him he will be spoken about and remembered the same as Josh Harrellson.

It was a tough game to watch as the announcers seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about how many of the Tenn players were going to be great down the line. As the game progressed you could see the Kentucky players start to sense they might win the game. The crowed was standing. Even the referees seemed to sense it.

It took the whole team to win the game but it took Matt Roark to dominate Tennessee. The team might have parted the sea but Matt led us across the sea bottom to victory.

Heck even renown coach Pete Carroll mentions it in his football primer in chapter two, The Administration Doesn’t Care.

Of course the game yesterday wasn’t about a national championship or such, but the game was about ‘who are we going to be going forward’! I believe that sometimes fate makes you make decisions that you are unable to make given your personality or your habits. In this instance I am talking about both of those attributes in Joker Phillips. I want all to understand that I am a huge admirer of Joker because of not only all he has accomplished as a football player and coach from and at UK, but because of his character.  Having said that, I feel that Joker wouldn’t have changed his “style” of play without being forced to do so.

That game against Ole’ Miss was much more than a casual yearly meeting between the two teams, because the losing coach of the game stood a good chance of losing their job as coach of their respective team (from what I have read Houston Nutt may have lost his job after the loss) and that is sad commentary for how we are and what is expected of a coach.  If Ole’ Miss had won Joker’s hot seat would have been hotter.

One thing happened on the way to a victory yesterday and that was the game was more exciting and became more winnable because of opening up the game a little and taking chances with play calling they wouldn’t have in the past. Those are two things we fans have been screaming about and for a long time.

Max Smith now has a following and Joker has a problem on his hands.  He has said Smith is the starter for next week, but Joker unless something happens to Smith this fan says he needs to be the starting quarterback the rest of the year no matter what.  The more open play calling and going for broke was exciting, but he made the connection with the receivers and (very importantly) the fans. The crowd was loud (I had to listen to the game via the radio) and I listened the entire game without getting disgusted and changing to classical music.  Also, Joker, this article says it will buy you more time with the fans.  It will buy you time for another year to let us see how good those other young guns you have been talking about really are.  I want that to happen.

Realistically, we can’t expect to win the rest of the games, but make them exciting and who knows what could happen on the way to having some fun.  Just saying!

1. LSU

2. Alabama

3. Arkansas

4. Auburn

5. South Carolina

6. Georgia

7. Florida

8. Vanderbilt

9. Mississippi State

10. Tennessee

11. Ole Miss

12. Kentucky

Mitch is having to live with the hiring of a “coach in waiting” as proposed by the most recent past coach Brooks, but reality is reality no matter how much we don’t want to admit it.

UK football is abysmal at best. Football has descended to the basement of football in America not to mention the SEC. I am just a writer and an untrained one at that, but I have eyes to see with and what I see is ugly to look at. I see an offensive line that is just that, offensive. They can’t seem to get together for even one good play let alone 4 of them. Why is that happening? That line was supposed to be pretty good according to the prognosticators (whom I didn’t believe), but it was forecast to be much better than they have showed. The question then is why is that so? Is it the players or the coaches, or could it be the system?

People say players play and coaches coach. In the forum section it has been posted that they don’t blame the players. I am sorry to say that I don’t completely agree with that. Now I am not laying all the blame on the players, but some of it has to be there. If the coaches are coaching well and have recruited well then the players have to perform to a certain level or have someone to take their place from within the system.

I could go down the list of positions that aren’t performing well and make all of us sick, but I won’t. The question and answers would be the same for all of them. It seems the only position that is doing OK is the kicking game.

Now back to Mitch and his decision to say what he did concerning Joker being the man. He had to say it for now, OK, yeah he did, yeah he did, but what about after this Saturday if they (gulp) lose? I hope they don’t lose, but they might. Who knows with this team what they might bring to the game Saturday, but even if they bring their “A” game that team will bring theirs. They smell blood and rightly so, because after all every team has smelled blood all year and why is that?!

Am I wrong to ask if the recruits (as a whole) are talented enough to play at the SEC level of football?

Secondly, am I wrong in suggesting the coaches aren’t making the right calls for the players to succeed. I surely think I am right in that regard, but more than that may I suggest they aren’t coaching the players up (as they say) as a team to be better than they can individually be. Good or dare I say great coaches do that. Not only can good or great coaches make the right calls, teach players how to make plays in a better more efficient way, but they make them burn with desire to be better. Let us face it not many players are Randall Cobb type players. Not many have a burning motor like him so the coaches have to instill that in them and this coaching staff is not doing that.

Now Joker has been here for a number of years and has had the reigns of recruiting, hiring staff, calling plays and motivating players. With his success rate in mind what rating should we give him for any or all of those areas. I mean, let us be reasonable and rate with our minds and not our hearts. Let us rate him by his success in development of 0 stars to 5 star recruits, wins against non-SEC teams, SEC teams. Does the success of the team make us look forward to the next game? Does the success of the recruiting department make us drool over the coming season? Does the excitement carry us through the summer and keep us tuned to the next talk show or searching websites for a new tidbit of exciting information?

I think the answer to that is no and Joker, Mitch, and the university President will have to answer for that sooner or later. I think Joker only has a few games (1 if they lose to J-ville State) to get the ship righted. If he doesn’t then what do they do? I mean who are they going to hire to replace Joker?

If the university doesn’t decide to put an emphasis on football it will eventually hurt all the programs. Basketball has been so successful it has been able to keep support a grow, but eventually it may need help. We aren’t always going to have a Calipari at the helm of basketball so UK desperately needs football to succeed. They need to pull out all stops to make sure it succeeds and that takes money. There is no reason football can’t succeed at UK and don’t give me the recruiting edges other schools have. UK just needs to put the money in the hand of a really good coach looking for a challenge or to put his stamp on a program.  They need to put their money on a man that can recruit the better players, make better play calls, motivate players and keep fans searching and listening.

Is there a man out there watching and listening for the call.  We know the fans are and have been for many, many years, but the real question is anyone in the administration listening?

So far this football season hasn’t lived up to what many (ok most of us) expected it to be. Emotion and expectation or a few beers clouded our judgment, hell it fueled most of our judgment for this years football team.

There are some positives to look at. For instance here is the standings in our Your Busted Cup, which gives points for being kicked off a team and suspensions.

Ole Miss – 13
Miss St – 7
LSU – 7
Arkansas -6
S Carolina – 4
Alabama – 4
Tenn – 3
Florida – 3
Auburn – 2
Georgia – 2

When Georgia and Florida were the big dogs in the SEC they were fighting it out between themselves to win the Your Busted Cup. Between the two of them they had more arrests and more players allowed back on the team other than SC and the Steven Garcia saga. Now that the west is the best, they are leading by over a three to one margin this year.

Add in what coach Cal said today at the media days. “We had a 3.16 grade point average last semester and a 3.16 last summer…it apparently didn’t merit enough to write a story about it. We had the highest APR in the SEC…you all knew that right? You didn’t write about it”. It shows that we have something to be PROUD ABOUT besides winning.

There is more to Kentucky football than recruiting stupid, athletic kids who only get into school because they get lower standards than the average student. Kentucky players represent the best of the commonwealth and are proud to do it.

Is that going to make losing feel better now that we are doing this good, NO. Is it going to make Jokers coaching look better, NO. But it is going to show us that Kentucky has learned by all its black eyes, YES. Well at least all of us but the Cal haters.

Mike Hartline would have started in a bowl last year for anyone besides us and Vanderbilt. Does that makes us look better, YES. At least I think our fathers and grandfathers would say so.

Do I think we need to keep Joker another year NO, but I’m gonna root for the Cats next year knowing that we recruit kids who care about how they look.

Our on the field performance hasn’t been that good but our off the field performance has given us all something to be proud of.

Go Cats!!!!!!!!!!

Arizona has a quarterback in Nick Foles that Leach could build around, while Kentucky has Morgan Newton who doesn’t fit in Leaches offense and no receivers to boot.

We will just have to wait and see how things play out but Arizona seems a better fit for Leach than Kentucky does.