Kentucky Wildcats Football: The College Style Midterm Grades

Yesterday Kyle Tucker over at C-J put up an article about the grades that each unit of the Cats’ team would get at the mid-point in the season and it didn’t look too good, pulling at 1.87 GPA so far. I don’t know how many of our readers went to college, nor do I care, college isn’t for everyone and it shouldn’t be pushed on everyone but the point here is that when I was in college and the midterm exam grades came out, I would use that as a barometer and then try to estimate what the rest of my grade was. “Zach, you could just add up your work to that point and figure out your ACTUAL grade, why not do that?” That is wrong. See, I also had an internal counter that was continually updating inside my head on how I thought my semester was going, and sometimes a gap would exist between these two. Being the pessimist (aka Kentucky Football Fan) that I am, my own estimation was usually worse than what it actually was, but occasionally it was better which led to a easing of the throttle and sometimes negative results. But I tried to keep these internal monitors low, so I could convince myself to work harder during the rest of the semester. Point is, as I read those grades I thought to myself,”That’s not real college style, there’s no exact releasing of the numbers and it sure doesn’t capture the essence of college grading stress.” So I created another report card, factoring in how tough I think the classes/season will be in the second half. Enjoy

O-line– Kyle’s grade-B
A rough start to the semester (every single starter missed time in preseason) meant that the unit as a whole couldn’t get things going like they wanted to (obviously). After crossing the worst part of the stream and the week off, all members are healthy and significant improvements should be noticed. Have to get out of the bottom half of NCAA in sacks allowed to improve the grade
College grade: B Projection: A

QB– Kyle’s grade-D
This has been a rough one. After talking all off-season about how Morgan Newton is poised to make the Woodson Jump, he has failed to put the numbers up like anybody had hoped. Part of it has been the godawful performance by the blockers, but I’m losing more faith in Newton than I am Joker. I’m going to need to see something that I haven’t seen yet to even improve to a passing grade.
College grade: F Projection: D

RB– Kyle’s grade-C
Another rough grade so far, but much of it can be attributed to the issues on the line and the fact that no one is threatened by Newton or the receivers killing them through the air. Losing Clemons for the year hurts our chances like losing the textbook halfway through the semester; it’s going to be a scramble to make it through. I can only hope Sanders bounces back and sparks some life into this offense.
College grade: D Projection: B, with some serious studying

Receivers– Kyle’s grade-F
I’m with Mr. Tucker on this one, this has been painful to watch. I would want to stand in a pocket indecisively too, if I had to throw to one of these guys on the field. When your leading receiver is averaging under four catches a game, there’s a serious issue. When no one else on the team has more than 10 catches on the year, that’s a very serious issue. Aren’t they supposed to be D-1 athletes? Somebody has to step up and be the man
College grade: F Projection: F. This is one of those where you know you’re going to have to take the class again.

D-Line– Kyle’s grade-C
This is one of the cases where I think the grade is better than it is on paper. Besides being amazingly deep at tackle, our ends have been very thin and they have been performing as well as you can hope given the situation. Truth is, we’re pretty average in sacks (10) and TFL (30) Rick Minter’s D might not look any better on paper, but when you play an NFL development team like LSU, nothing you do will look that great.
College grade: B Projection: B. Still need to ace the second half if you want to maintain the grade

Linebackers– Kyle’s grade-B
What do you get when you put a cyborg, a workhorse, and a safety who can’t cover in the same linebacking corp? You get the UK defense. The three have combined for 180 tackles and rank near the top in the SEC and nationally. We’re good here, move along
College grade: A Projection: A

Secondary– Kyle’s grade-D
Just like the actual secondary, they start out well but blew the more important part, the midterm. the midterm in this analogy is 3rd down, which the secondary has allowed to be converted too many times, leading to an abysmal 14 yard per completion on that essential down.
College grade: C Projection: C, with some fighting effort required

Special Teams– Kyle’s grade-B
Tydlacka is becoming the next man in line to go to the NFL from “Punter U”, ranking top-20 nationally in average yards; but the return game has been utter crap. Let’s hope Greg Nord’s getting it done on the recruiting trail at least.
College grade: C Projection: B, with better returning.

Final GPA at midterm: 1.7. Let’s hope we can do better than that. That won’t even get us eligible for a bowl game (see what I did there? That’s and academic AND an athletic joke)

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