Kentucky Wildcats Going Bowling: Welcome to Birmingham

If you squint your eyes right it looks like a boob!

As Joker’s Phillips first season as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats winds down, we look back on all the moments that could have gotten us to the “next level”. But that is why football is played, because you can never predict what will happen in any given football game. For these Cats, never knowing meant never waking up until the second half and never realizing the full potential of this team, at least for the first 43 minutes. But predictions are flowing now and the Big Blue is looking for a warmer bowl game. The shining 2-6 record in the SEC means that we’ll be scrapping leftovers from literally every other bowl eligible SEC team, and watching the bowl season until the last 72 hours. Hopefully dodging a New Year’s day UK-UL basketball/bowl game conflict, all signs have pointed to one of the last and most prestigious bowl games on the schedule. My friends welcome to Birmingham.

Yup. The BBVA Compass bowl. Despite looking for a whole minute and 13 seconds, I couldn’t find what BBVA actually means but they are a bank that serves southern states such as Alabama, New Mexico, and Arizona. Just looking at the tagline (“Serious Hospitality. Serious Football”) alone for the bowl makes me tingle in my football loins, as well as make me wonder why Gaylord Hotels hadn’t already thought of that.

True the bowl projections have not been finalized yet, but senior writers at CBS, FOX, and ESPN have already called this game for the Cats, and their sources are better than mine, so I’ll trust them. The opponents they have chalked up are where they vary a bit, but the primary suspects are shaping up to be UConn, South Florida, or Pittsburgh. All decent teams, but undeniably each of those teams were more impressive last year. They should provide a good game for the fans and slight restoration of credibility to the last bit of the season.

 Point is, we messed up and missed out on the Gator (Florida), Outback (South Carolina), Cotton (LSU/Alabama), Music City (Tennessee NOOOOO!!) and Liberty (Georgia) bowls, and we’re lucky to have this one come to us. I’m a firm believer that the extra month is helpful to development, as well the importance of getting drunk with family and making outrageous claims about UK players during the bowl game (Actual quote from 2007:”I’m telling you, Steve Johnson is going to be a 1st round draft pick”), but we could have ended up in a much warmer and much nicer setting. All we can do at this point is make it the best experience possible and cheer against the Vols in our wintering home in Nashville. Be happy though: at least it’s not the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl in Detroit. Nothing ruins a good bowl trip like larceny and assault, with a side of economic misery.

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