Kentucky Wildcats Football: Who is the real underdog in Western Kentucky Hilltoppers game?

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Sept 15, 2012; Lexington, KY, USA; Western Kentucky Hilltoppers players celebrate after defeating the Kentucky Wildcats in overtime at Commonwealth Stadium. Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

Above is the scene in Lexington last year after the WKU Hilltoppers upset the Kentucky Wildcats 32-31. It’s never good for a SEC program to lose from a team from the Sun Belt Conference, much less one in your home state and on your own field. And it was a telling sign of how far Kentucky football had fallen under Joker Phillips, going from five straight bowl games to a 2-10, winless in the SEC season.

That loss to the Hilltoppers was the low point in the season, which eventually cost Joker Phillips his job. Western Kentucky has a new coach in this game as well, as Willie Taggart rode the success of back to back seven win seasons and the programs first ever bowl bid to a job at South Florida.

Considering that WKU now has 14 wins in the past two seasons as a FBS program and a new high-profile coach who is an established winner in Bobby Petrino, the question has to be asked.  Who is the real underdog in this game?  Let’s look at a few themes and see.

PRESEASON RANKINGS

USA Today did an extensive preview of college football and decided that WKU was the 75th best team in college football and Kentucky the 101st.  Athlon Sports does the complete opposite and names Kentucky the 65th best team and WKU 91st.  And going in a totally different direction was the Orlando Sentinel picking WKU as the 67th best team and Kentucky at 97th.  And that is the problem with preseason polls.  Some of these things are written so far in advance they are effectively out of date by the time the season rolls around.  But if you look around, there are several pundits that think WKU is much better than UK.

THE COACHES

Despite what you think of him, Bobby Petrino is a proven winner.  He has a gaudy 75-26 record as a college head coach and has a winning record in seven of eight seasons.  He has four seasons with 10+ wins, and three BCS Bowl appearances, and seven bowls overall.  He has a 17-15 record in the tough SEC.  And this is a head coach that has owned the Big Blue Nation.  In his stay at Louisville, Petrino went 4-0 against UK, outscoring the Wildcats 158-76.  In his only SEC meeting against the Cats, he fell victim to the legend of Randall Cobb and lost 21-20, despite leading most of the game.

In Mark Stoops. Kentucky has a coach not only coaching his first head game in college, but first head coaching game ever.  THe Stoops pedigree is there and Mark was a very smart hire for UK.  But as far as coaching goes, Petrino has Stoops lapped for now.  Athlon named Petrino the second best coaching hire of 2013, and Stoops was 14th.    Athlon continued on with the Bobby Petrino love fest and named him the 8th best coach in college football and Stoops the 71st best coach.  

Granted coaching will get you so far, but Petrino has the obvious edge now.

INTANGIBLES

In the end, it is all about culture change for Mark Stoops and Kentucky.  He has the revenge factor going for him and he has a roster of players wanting to experience success and redeem themselves for last years defeat.  At Western, it is about maintaining.  Willie Taggart built this program and Petrino was brought in to advance it.  There is a level of expectations for WKU and as this is technically a home game, Western should win.  Also you can not discount the redemption factor for Petrino.  He was disgraced last year and could find just one BCS program to hire him.  You can bet Petrino is pitching the underdog theme and no respect card to his team despite the fact WKU was the better team last year.

But the talent is on the side of Kentucky.  Even in their lean seasons, Joker Phillips outrecruited Willie Taggart and Kentucky still has the talent to beat Western.  And the 2013 recruiting class rankings point this out.  Mark Stoops’s class was ranked 29th by Rivals and Petrino’s was 90th.  Pettrino did almost a complete overhaul of the roster bringing in 32 new players in that class with an average star ranking of 2.09 compared to Kentucky’s 3.05 average.  WKU’s class was highlighted by three *** players.  Kentucky’s with three **** players.

In the end, it was a perfect storm that allowed WKU to beat UK last year, from four Max Smith interceptions to a trick play extra point that nearly touched the ground.  As was the case then as it is now, Kentucky should be favored.  It is the magic of Petrino that is fueling the talk of the upset, but maybe it should be time for a rewrite in history.

Bobby Petrino is 8-0 in season openers, including the very first game he coached, versus Kentucky.  Saturday marks Mark Stoops’s first season opener.  Kentucky needs to break Petrino’s streak and allow Mark Stoops to start his own.