Kentucky Wildcats Football: Is Western Kentucky Hilltoppers game a “must win” game?

Jan 21, 2012; Fayetteville, AR, USA; Arkansas Razorbacks head football coach Bobby Petrino waves to the crowd during half time of a basketball game between the Michigan Wolverines and Arkansas Razorbacks at Bud Walton Arena. The football team was honor for winning the 2012 AT

When the Kentucky Wildcats and Western Kentucky Hilltoppers finally hit the gridiron on August 31, it will mark and end to perhaps the most important off seasons in both UK’s and WKU’s history. The teams are both have new heading coaching staffs and depending on what happens in UK’s camp, could both have new starting quarterbacks. Both teams went high-profile on their new head coaches. Kentucky started another branch on the Stoops family coaching head coaching tree, while WKU went with the enigmatic Bobby Petrino, who is just one year removed from a personal scandal at Arkansas.

This game has storyline galore. So much so that Pat Forde named it as his 17th most intriguing game of the entire college football season.  Think about that a moment.  A game between a Sun Belt Team and a 2-10 SEC team is one of the most intriguing games of the entire college football season?  Of course, as with everything he does, Mr. Forde throws in his typical anti_UK slant:

"17. Western Kentucky vs. Kentucky in Nashville, Aug. 31. No, this game will not have any national implications. But it is the return from exile of new Hilltoppers coach Bobby Petrino. If he can beat what should be a bad Kentucky squad and then take down a shaky Tennessee team the next week – two schools that had no interest in hiring Petrino last offseason – how many athletic directors pondering a coaching change will forget all about that motorcycle wreck in 2012?"

Not a mention of a Mark Stoops. As the kids say “SMH”.

We know this is an intriguing game, but is it a MUST WIN game for Kentucky?

To be honest, Mark Stoops pretty much has a free pass this season for Kentucky as long as his team fights hard and plays for sixty minutes.  And some pundits are writing Kentucky off in this game.  I know that most of the Kentucky fan base may see this as a must win game as well just due to UK being a SEC school and WKU is a Sun Belt school and the adage that a Sun Belt school should never beat a SEC school.  In anything.

That is true to a degree.  But seeing that it is Mark Stoop’s first game and inheriting the team that he did … well, it’s hard to call any game a must win game.  But if there was one, this is as pretty close as one can be.  Perhaps if Bobby Petrino was not the head coach of Western, it would be different.  But a loss to WKU would just inflame the few remaining fans that think that UK should have put their program in the hands of Petrino, even with his baggage.

Don’t get me wrong, a loss to WKU would not be a deathblow to Kentucky’s program at any cost, but it would fuel the tons of other football coaches that are casting an envious eye at UK’s 2014 class.  Including a certain coach 70 miles down the road.  While this is not a must win for UK and Stoops, let’s just say that a win is going to make what looks like a rough season a heck of a lot easier to take.

What do you think?