Kentucky Wildcats Football: New Commitment to Football Refreshing

It broke late Tuesday night that Kentucky would be voting this Friday on a proposed football practice facility

to be built in addition to the $110 million stadium upgrades that UK plans to have in place by the 2015 football season. The addition is said to be funded entirely by private donations and is just one part of an overall plan to reengineer the Alumni Drive area of campus. It is expected to cost $45 million to construct, which is the same amount that the University of Tennessee just spent on their new facility. Here is what it bought them:

Kentucky is finally taking the next step in trying to compete in football. No, these facilities won’t match Alabama or Ohio State, but they close that gap just a little bit more. Kentucky now has a passionate young coaching staff full of great recruiters, stadium upgrades, a new practice facility, a Top 15 recruiting class coming in and the full support of the university for the first time, possibly ever. It’s a very exciting time for the long-suffering Kentucky football fans.

It also makes one wonder what former head coach Rich Brooks thinks of all this. Brooks retired after being promised upgrades that never came and five years later here it has finally happened. Let’s hope that Pawpaw is sitting on a river bank in Oregon smiling about the direction of the program. He has certainly been satisfied with Stoops so far. It may be time to consider naming some part of these renovations after Brooks. (Although if the practice facility was a donation, it will likely be named after the donor) Brooks didn’t set the world on fire at Kentucky but he is certainly the most successful coach in recent memory. He laid the foundation that is spurring this change, despite naming Joker Phillips his successor, he whet the appetite of Kentuckians for gridiron success. Basketball school, basketball state, say what you want, but Kentucky is hungry for a winning football team. They come out in droves when there is something to be excited about, the only thing missing now is success on the field. Kentucky fans love Kentucky.

So what’s the next step? Well, winning football games is a big one. Kentucky needs to start showing improvement on the field to continue the positive momentum that has been snowballing since Stoops was hired. The upcoming season should show some improvement, simply by adding more talented players and the schedule getting a tad bit easier. The staff is going to be a little more experienced. The players on the team will fit the schemes Kentucky wants to run better. There is a new attitude among the players on this football team. I mentioned last year that the newcomers all played like nobody told them that Kentucky can’t be good. Expect that confidence to continue, if not increase, with the players from the 2014 class. If you read a few interviews with these guys, they really believe that they are going to compete for SEC titles at Kentucky. Go back a couple of years and new players talked about trying to get to bowl games.

I’ve said many times that Kentucky need a complete culture change to compete in the SEC and build this program to the level that football fans want it to reach. It appears that the culture is changing, from top to bottom. From the Univeristy to Mitch Barnhart to the coaches to the players. Many fans have already bought in, they just have to stay the course. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Signing Day is next week. After that you should expect details about Spring Game 2014 to surface. Start making your plans now.