Go for Two

Kentucky charmed the country last week with its upset of #1 LSU. The Cats try to add to their mystical run today against defending national champion Florida. The game will be a huge challenge for UK. The Cats are without their top running back, they are banged up from the LSU game last week, and they have to face an uber-talented Florida QB in Tim Tebow. The Gators had a bye week last week so on paper they should be the fresher team.

Given all those things I don't expect Kentucky to pull off the unthinkable two weeks in a row. But given the guts & character of this year's Wildcat team I'm not putting it past them either. One thing is for sure, the Rutledges will be glued to CBS this afternoon to see if they have another rabbit in their hat.

Go Big Blue! Cheers!

Storming the Field

I thought it was funny when Mitch Barnhart, Kentucky's AD, sent out an email last week with this statement regarding storming the field should Kentucky upset LSU:

Dear UK Fan:
Coach Brooks often speaks about the commitment his team has made to be successful. With his pledge to excellence also comes the responsibility of the fans to support the team but to do it with class and dignity. Everyone affiliated with the University couldn't be happier with the overwhelming support the fans have given the coaches and the team.

As a reminder, SEC and University of Kentucky policies strictly prohibit spectators from entering the competition areas at any time before, during, or after a game. UK's field surface is among the nation's best. When fans rush the field it compromises the integrity of that surface and risks the health and safety of the same players that fans are intending to celebrate. Please continue to enjoy the wins from your seat.

LSU brings the nation's number one team to Commonwealth at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, so it will be another difficult test for our team. Coach Brooks often remarks about the difference the home crowd makes for the team. Please support the Wildcats by entering the stadium early, supporting our team, and practicing patience in the parking lots before and after the game.

From the diehard fan's perspective the win over LSU wasn't just a celebration of one game. It was vindication, retribution, revenge, and exorcism of past losses -- many, many of them -- that people were celebrating. After Kentucky stopped LSU on downs in the third OT, I just jumped up and shouted, "They did it!" over and over again. I couldn't believe that Kentucky had finally overcome the years of losing this game, this very game. And I'm just a fan watching at home -- imagine if you're these players and coaches trying to undo this habitual losing mindset.

After Kentucky's monumenal upset when thousands of fans stormed the field in celebration I chuckled to myself remembering Mitch's email. In reality I think Barnhart could make one phone call to a big booster and get a $25,000 check delivered to the athletic department that day to pay these fines assessed to schools when their fans storm the field.

So I feel for Mitch having to answer to SEC and NCAA officials each time the fans storm the field. It is an issue of safety, although I would argue that it's not that dangerous now that the grounds crew takes the goalposts down immediately. Personally I think Mitch secretly could care less about fans storming the field as it means UK's football team is doing unprecedented things, but he probably has to send that email out.
___________________________________________

I have watched this video clip countless times. I love the roar of the crowd after the TD catch and defensive stop. What a thrill. Go Big Blue!

A Win Like No Other

Kentucky over LSU 43-37.....3 OTs.....upset of the #1 team in the nation.....biggest win in modern UK football history.

GO

BIG

BLUE!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Hat tip to Jeff Mills for the picture. What a thrill!

Geaux Big Blue

Huge Kentucky game vs. #1 LSU today at Commonwealth. C.E. is venturing up to Lexington for this one -- yell loud for us, Chuck. The game is a national television game as CBS picked it up for its SEC game of the week. Mitch Barnhart (Kentucky athletic director) sent out an email this week to alumni & fans stating the importance of staying off the field for safety's sake should the unthinkable happen. Of course still stuck in UK fans' heads is the game four years ago where LSU beat the Cats on a last second hail mary bomb while UK fans celebrated tearing down the goalposts in the opposite endzone. Finally, although Kentucky is having its best season in 30 years the loss last week to South Carolina was a reality check. As if the notion of beating a top ranked team that spanked them 49-0 last year wasn't enough...

Given all of that, I am still going to pursue a different route in asking the football gods for a Big Blue victory. I'm not going with the historic upset path, the revenge path, or the monumental UK season path.

Here goes. Football gods, can you really live with yourself knowing this little guy will be disappointed all week without a Big Blue victory? Does this little UK fan deserve a Big Blue upset or what?



Go Big Blue! Cheers!

Five and Oh !!?!!?!

What a very odd year in college football. For University of Kentucky fans, we are accustomed to talking basketball by this point. It is October after all. Midnight Madness is 10 days away. The Billy Gillispie era is about to begin, right? But stop the presses.

Rich Brooks has put together a 5-0 Kentucky team that has a chance to win its first two SEC games for the first time in 30 years. Kentucky has a chance to start the season 6-0 for the first time in 67 years. The Cats are ranked #8 in the polls -- the football polls. Quarterback Andre Woodson is a frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy.

This is an awful lot of early success to throw at a fan base whose team is used to losing on Hail Mary's and last second touchdown passes. We are fans of the program that has mastered the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- over and over and over. Yet, we Kentucky fans still tune in, still support Big Blue, still keep coming back.

As I was discussing this alternate reality we find ourselves in with my friend & fellow UK fan Dave O, we concluded that tonight's Kentucky/South Carolina game is probably the biggest Kentucky football game of our adult lives. How crazy is that! A Thursday night ESPN game which is only the second league game of the season is arguably the biggest Kentucky game in years. The only game that comes to mind that could be bigger is the Louisville game in 1994 that re-established the UK/UofL rivalry after laying dormant for decades. Either way, tonight's game is huge if Kentucky wants to make the leap into the national scene.

Our crew will be glued to the TV tonight. The boys are practicing their "C-A-T-S" cheer. Here's hoping Kentucky can win tonight so next week's LSU game becomes the biggest game in recent Kentucky football history. Go Big Blue!

BTW, the beverage of choice for tonight's game is VICTORY Hop Devil Ale. Cheers!

C-A-T-S

Kentucky football is the darling of the sports media's attention right now. The New York Times even has a piece on them. Having a chance to be 5-0 for the first time in 30 years shows how bleak things have been in recent football history. You could even say their fortunes were sealed when Bear Bryant walked away from the job because he got a watch while Rupp got a car as rewards for their respective successes.

It took 50+ years but now Kentucky may have found its answer in a football coach retread that most people wrote off after his first two years on the job. I love the sweet retribution that is allowing Rich Brooks to have the last laugh.

As for the fans -- the tortured UK football fans -- who have stuck with the Cats through the lean years, they are finally experiencing the thrill of victory as well:

“They’ve been pretty loyal through some pretty sorry football,” Brooks said in a telephone interview last night. “Some of it was while I was coaching here. They are being rewarded for being faithful.”

Go Big Blue!

Cinderella's Fiesta Slipper

In one of the greatest football bowl games ever played, here is a fantastic ten minute summary of Boise State's upset win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. The hook and ladder and the Statue of Liberty in the same game. Incredible!

Cheers!

Bowling in Music City

Last week I headed over to Nashville to see Kentucky win its first bowl game in 22 years against Clemson in the Music City Bowl. Amy graciously agreed to give me a guilt-free pass for a couple of days despite the fact that I was leaving her alone to take care of Owen & Gus, both of whom were saddled with awful colds & fevers. So I made the most and the best of it.

The 1,070 mile trek was an eight-hour drive each way. The trip included a weird experience around Knoxville, where I noticed several police cars speeding in my direction on my side of the interstate in the emergency lane. Once I saw them I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed a vehicle heading the wrong way up an exit ramp behind me. All of this happened very fast, and searching the Knoxville newspaper today I learned that this was the police chasing two bank robbers fleeing on a high-speed chase around the time I was driving that leg of the trip. Here are the two winners that were ultimately apprehended.

In Nashville I met up with Jeff Mills, my friend from UK undergrad days and his band of merry pharmacists from Louisville. One of them asked me, "Didn't you get bored and dread driving that long by yourself?" I thought about it for a moment and responded that not once did I dread the solitary drive. Personally it was therapeutic to have a little time to myself.

The highlight of the trip of course was the bowl game itself. LP Field in Nashville had a record crowd of 68,000+ fans, and at least 75% of those were Kentucky fans. It was a sea of blue. The Cats dominated the second half of the game leading 28-6 before Clemson added two late fourth-quarter touchdowns to make it 28-20. After the game, the pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland River was a massive celebration of Kentucky fans. I mentioned to a couple of subdued Clemson fans to just give Kentucky fans their moment. Given that it was 1984 since Kentucky's last bowl win, UK fans didn't get to celebrate the successes of their football team very often.

After the game our crew descended on B.B. King's restaurant downtown where we proceeded to soak up the victory with many other UK revelers with a local blues band serenading the crowd in the background. Chants of "C-A-T-S, Cats, Cats, Cats!" spontaneously erupted for hours. Shortly after the party continued to local karaoke bars, I called it a night and returned to the hotel, having thoroughly enjoyed the Big Blue experience and at the same time eager to return to the comforts of home & family. The trip was everything I wanted it to be -- a chance to unwind with a long peaceful drive, see the Cats end their losing ways in football, and hang out with old friends. Perhaps next year will bring a New Year's Day road trip for the entire family.

Cheers!

The Big Blue crew readies itself for Kentucky's first bowl win in 22 years. It's not every day that you get to live the High Life at 9 a.m.



Mr. Mills and Mr. Rutledge waking up for the big game.




Derek in Music City.




A sea of blue at LP Field in Nashville.




The scoreboard doesn't lie. Kentucky's first bowl win since 1984 caught on camera.

Derek in Music City celebrating after the huge win phoning in to anyone who will listen.

Exorcising the Ghost of Marty Moore

At the risk of counting chickens before they hatch, putting the cart before the horse, and jinxing the current good fortune of Kentucky football all within the same blog post, I had to post this now given the good feeling that surrounds the Big Blue football program. And seeing how rare it is that UK gives its football fans the opportunity to feel good, I may not have this opportunity for another 5-10 years. So here goes.

When November rolls around fans of the University of Kentucky typically have their eyes exclusively peeled to the upcoming basketball season, and football lingers like an unwanted gnat. The Vanderbilt game is nearly always a gray, dreary matchup of the cellar dwellers in the SEC. By the time the Saturday after Thanksgiving gets here, Commonwealth Stadium is infiltrated by waves of orange and the incessant -- some would say obnoxious ;-) -- rumblings of "Rocky Top" can be heard in full blare. Occasionally the UK football fan is still clinging to the hope of a winning record heading into the final game of the season, but a win over Tennessee in the finale hasn't happened for 21 straight years.

This season is a bit different. For the first time since 1999 Kentucky has qualified to go to a bowl game. The team should be 7-4 by the time the annual grudge match with the Vols rolls around next week. The Cats have a young team dominated by underclassmen and are led by an underrated quarterback who has made the transformation from indecisive and turnover-prone to confident and explosive. UK has won its last three games including an upset over periennal power Georgia and a fourth-quarter comeback against a better-than-average Vandy.

So with this rare feeling of good fortune comes an extension to the football season that has me looking ahead to bowl possibilities. The most likely candidates for Kentucky would be the Music City Bowl in Nashville or the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. But an outside possibility exists for an invitation to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. Several things would need to happen, not the least of which is a Kentucky victory in Knoxville next week. Despite the fact that I predict such a victory nearly every year ("No this really is the year") and despite the fact that my spy (my friend Eric who is a grad student at UT) is nearly guaranteeing that the streak will end this year, a win at Tennessee will be difficult as it always is.

Still for a moment let's assume the Cats continue their improbable run and finish 8-4. (I'm up to eleven chickens now I know.) This would put Kentucky in second place in the SEC East, and the Peach Bowl would definitely be within the realm of possibility. As the Peach Bowl pits SEC vs. ACC, a potential matchup could be against Clemson which would reunite the two schools from their clash in 1993 when I was a freshman at UK.

Such a scenario is the ideal cap to a solid season -- a chance to end many a bad streak: the losing skid to the Big Orange, the ghost of Marty Moore, the 22-year drought without a bowl victory. Don't get me wrong. There are still plenty of ghosts to be exorcised: the last second Chris Doering TD catch against Florida, the horrendous Hail Mary loss to LSU, and so many more. But with such a history of awful defeats, UK fans can't expect them all to be erased in one year.

Here's hoping the good fortunes continue and some ghosts are on their way out. Cheers!

C - A - T - S

Bowl eligibile for the first time in seven years. Assuming they win next week, they'll be 7-4 heading into Knoxville for the showdown with Tenneesee. Not bad for ole Rich Brooks & co.