NCAA visits Nerlens Noel’s friends in Kentucky Wildcats eligibility probe

The Kentucky / Louisville football game is just six days away and we have mostly focused on the offense in the morning five.  What about the defense?  Defensive coordinator Rick Minter pretty much feels that the Kentucky defense is right on pace headed into the season. There are however, some questions that still need to be answered:

"Minter on starting jobs that still need to be settled: Yeah we’re going to roll some guys in certain places just to stay fresh. Guys have emerged and then you get in your sub packages that changes guys roles here and there. So we have some guys we can roll through there we don’t hope to go through the season just playing 11-12 guys we hope to play 20-22guys so we still have some of the battles persistent. Minter on Louisville: We’ve been thinking about Louisville since last year to a degree. Certainly it’s our next opponent it’ a big in state rival game, out of conference, its recruiting rights, bragging rights, its state rights all those sorts of clichés that go with a rival game and it happens to be first. So it’s most important because it’s out next game is on the schedule. We’re dialed in and focused on the cardinals because they’re a good football team; returned a lot of guys that made a lot of plays for them last year, You know their doing a lot of really good things at the QB and RB positions. Charlie’s doing a great job over there and we respect what they have done and look forward to playing them in another week and half."

Earlier in the summer, football guru Phil Steele  raised eyebrows when he ranked the Kentucky Wildcats BEHIND the WKU Hilltoppers in his preseason preview. As crazy as that may have seemed, even Phil Steele is not buying into the logic that Louisville is 14 points better than Kentucky. In his week one newsletter, he actually picks Kentucky to upset the Dirty Birds 21-20. Also over the weekend, I have seen no less than five websites “selling” Kentucky as their lock of the week to cover the 14 point spread. Point is, that 14 point margin was ridiculous and I would look for it to come way down over the week. History dictates this will be a close game and that Louisville is just 2-2 when they come into the game ranked and Kentucky is not.

This game is going to be a lot closer that Cardinal fans think … and even the coaching staff has talked a lot of smack about Kentucky. Expect that to bite them back in one way or another.