Off the ledge, Cat fans. UK is right where we thought they would be at this point in the season, at 2-2. You can point a lot of fingers at certain players and try to blame them but when you lose 41-7 and 38-20 to the #1 and #3 teams in the country, there is really no room for individual finger pointing.
I know that there is a Big Blue Mutiny on the message boards and such regarding Mike Hartline, but I am not going to join that ridiculousness. Brooks said after the game that Hartline is the best option that UK has, and to suggest throwing Morgan Newton into the fray for the next two critical games is absurd.
UK is right where we knew they would be. There are eight games left and UK needs to go 6-2 to get out of the state of Tennessee for a bowl game, and at least 5-3 to keep their bowl streak alive. Technically, 4-4 would still land us a bowl, but I want an 8-4 season. Let’s look at latest notes and random thoughts before we bury the Alabama game and look towards South Carolina.
Congratulations to Lones Seiber for becoming the all time leading scorer for the University of Kentucky. Seiber took the title on his first FG of the game, a career high 49 yarder. Seiber padded his title later in the first quarter on another 49 yard FG. Coach Brooks should get an assist on the second FG as he called a timeout with :05 left in the first period to allow Seiber to take advantage of the 15-20 mile per hour winds at Commonwealth Stadium. Redshirt freshman Craig McIntosh did a nice job on four kickoff, averaging 63.2 yards a kick, and punter Ryan Tydalacka had two great punts pinning Alabama at their 4 and at their 2 in the second quarter.
Derrick Locke passed the 1000 yard rushing mark for his career in the Alabama game and is now 27th on UK’s all time list. With 53 yards against South Carolina, he will pass Shawn Donigan and move into 26th place. After another fine day yesterday, Derrick Locke now leads the SEC in all purpose yardage after adding 204 all purpose yards against Alabama. What is impressive is that Locke has done this against 2 teams in the top 3 nationally. Kentucky also became the first team to gain more than 300 yards against Alabama this year, and UK has cracked the 300 yard mark in three of the four games.
Sam Maxwell was all over the field Saturday and broke up a pass for the fourth straight game and had 4 tackles. Fellow linebackers Micah Johnson and Danny Trevathan both had busy days with 10 tackles apiece. DeQuin Evans contributed his third sack of the season and Chandler Burden set a career high with 5 tackles. The Kentucky defense played it’s best football of the season in the first half where they held Alabama to 4 straight “3 and out” series. For the day, the defense was victimized by the offensive turnovers and bad penalties which gave Alabama the ball in great field position. The UK defense only allowed Alabama two drives all day over 40 yards, which speaks volumes about the “gifts” UK was giving the Crimson Tide.
Seriously, Nick Saban is a douche bag. Do not think about justifying his fake FG attempt late in the 4th quarter as a sign of respect for UK’s offense or any of the crap that the SEC Network announcers tried to come up with. Saban proved he was merely trying to run up the score when he passed to the endzone on a 4th and 9. And don’t give me this “BCS argument” argument to justify this. Like Urban Meyer and Florida, the BCS arrangement is designed to help Alabama and Florida get to the title game. If Saban really wants to prove his team’s worth and prove they belong in the BCS game, beat Florida in the SEC Championship game and earn it. The BCS rankings will not be impressed by running up the score on Kentucky in early October if you can not beat Florida in December. For all his “genius”, Saban will always be remembered as the man who chose Daunte Culpepper over Dree Brees as a free agent for the Dolphins and decimated the team in just two seasons before lying and running off to greener pastures.
And finally, if there is blame to be placed for UK’s performance against
Florida and Alabama, the blame has to be put on Coach Brooks. Brooks pretty much fell on his sword for the Florida game and I am sure he would rather you bash him than a college student. I’m sure he can take it and will tell you “I’m a man, I’m 68!!”.
Sarcasm aside, Brooks team’s this year have shown a very disturbing trend of disappearing from the field mentally for about a 15 minute period in each game. Despite these lapses in all four games, UK has won two of their games this year. But you can not ignore the 0-0 scoreless first quarter against hapless Miami, the 13-0 third quarter (plus a minute of 4th) against UL, the 31-0 1st quarter against UF, and Saturdays 24-0 Alabama tear during the second and third quarter. During that time, UK has given up 68 points and scored zero.
The UK meltdowns have been all across the board and have taken the form of stupid penalties, horrible kick off coverage, inexplicable turnovers, and blown pass coverages. No one on the offense is immune at pointing fingers at the defense or vice versa. And UK fans should temper their unrealistic expectations for football on message boards and quit attacking 18-22 year olds as if it was their god given right to.
I love Brooks and hope he can right this ship, but it is up to he and his coaching staff to get to the root of the problem, find out what the source of these meltdowns are and rectify it. Part of it is improper planning and a lot of the confusion on offense has to be the fault of the coaching staff.
Sorry for the tough love approach with Brook, but I know he can handle it and I have faith that he can deliver on the season we all expected. We are at 2-2 just like we expected. The real season starts now.
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