Kentucky Wildcats Football: Now Both of Us Will be Blacked Out for This Game
By Zach Rosen
It’s finally here. We got our own Nike Combat uni’s for the beginning of this year, and despite looking better than Georgia’s, they didn’t seem to improve our game, contrary to the Nike rep’s claim. SO Joker said “F it” and whipped out the black duds for our first conference game of the “new season” as he calls it. I can remember two years ago when the fad hit, and everybody wore black on the Halloween night games, including Tennessee (I’m not subjecting you to looking at that disgusting color, just imagine a pencil tip on top of one of those nasty orange pumpkin pencils you got at school for the holiday), but Rich Brooks called forth his inner curmudgeon and stoutly nixed it. Now, in the media generated fire that has become the sophomore year campaign for Joker needed something to create excitement (read: distract people from the offense) and give his team a mental edge coming into a fairly important conference tilt. While being upset with Rich two years ago for his unwillingness to change and add flair, I can see now that we didn’t really need it to get back some positive momentum. Once again, the grandpa-like wisdom of Rich Brooks proves us all to be still have space to learn. Nice job, Papa Brooks. Now for some notes on the game this weekend.
-There may be somewhat of a quarterback controversy brewing in Starkville. A lot of fan buzz in the area has generated talk the QB Chris Relf is simply not getting it done. After starting the season ranked in the Top-25, the Bulldogs sit at 3-4 and 0-4 in the SEC. If that doesn’t make you feel better, Relf’s stats look almost as bad as Newton’s thus far. Completing 58% of his passes may seem serviceable enough, but when you see that he’s only thrown four TD’s compared with five interceptions, the argument has some legs. Backup Tyler Russell has come in and perormed decently and has many people believing that he is the best QB on the squad, already outpacing Relf in touchdowns (5). Relf has all the athleticism you could want, but his skills under center seem to be lacking and some have questioned whether a position change is needed. Hey, at least we’re not trying to fit Morgan Newton into the WR corp.
-Looking at that record, especially in conference, makes me think this match-up is closer than the Vegas line (currently at 10.5) is giving. But don’t let the big doughnut at the beginning of that record fool you into thinking they are rolling over. The Dogs lost to Auburn literally at the last second in the last inch, and managed to keep South Carolina within the 50 point scoring gap that we gave up. But a loss is a loss, and with a realigned rushing attack, it’s possible that the downhill running game that Miss. St has been employing might look a lot like ours. And we sure know how that looks like when it’s not going.
-Finally, if you haven’t heard from any of the other very credible news sources, this weekend will be a blackout for the fans as well. I know I have had my share of frustrations with the fans and I’ve made no secret about it, but this is kind of big in terms of increasing our fanhood. Many large programs across the country (including Penn State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and Oregon) have all had their own versions of a crowd color wash and if you haven’t seen it on TV, it’s awesome. So please, wear black to the game this weekend if you go, don’t be the guy in the stands looking like a douche because you wanted to wear your light blue polo. This is a big, big step in making us look better as fans and you don’t even have to stand up and yell if you don’t want to, just become part of the experience and be involved.
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