SOS: Same Ole Situation for Football Cats

This could also stand for "Save our Season"

I don't get it. I really don't. I was at Commonwealth Stadium this Saturday night to watch Kentucky take on Georgia in what I had hoped to be the follow up victory to the South Carolina upset. The house was packed tight, the crowd was loud, expectations were sky high and I had just partied for free at the Buffalo Trace invite only tailgate. Life was good.

And then the same old story happened. UK down 28-10 after the first half. Here are the scores from the first half in the last 5 games: Florida-21-7; Ole Miss-21-17; Auburn- 31-17; South Carolina-28-10; Georgia-28-10. Out of those 5 games the Cats managed to come back only once in order to win the game. That's a 20% win percentage when they are down at halftime. That's not very good.

And it's not like they are down by 3. We are talking double digit deficits in all but one game. I will give the Cats credit for the fact that they don't quit and they always fight back. The only blow out game was against the Gators. What does this tell me? This tells me that UK is not a terrible team and they aren't really a bad team. They are just bad in the first half. And I guarantee that if you asked Joker Phillips or anybody else on that team, they would not have a decent answer for why this is so.

And let's not do the fan blame game here. That place was jacked up. It was loud and the fans were in full support of the team. Nobody left after the first half even with the Cats down by so many points. People stayed, people cheered and people questioned whether or not this team will ever put an entire game together. If they did that they may be 5-3. But let us not play the "may" game, let us deal in reality:

• We are no longer looking at contending in the SEC East race, we are just looking at getting a bowl game


• We face a very good Mississippi State team that is 6-2 with wins against Florida and Georgia. Their only losses are to Auburn and LSU, two teams in the top 10 and one of which is the new overall #1 in the BCS. We have always had trouble with this team in the past. I can't tell you how many decent UK teams we had that had their season crushed by losing to a bad or mediocre Miss St. team. And the scary thing is that they are good this year. And they are at home.


• Mike Hartline is very good


• The Cats fumble too much and the turnovers have been Public Enemy #1


• We NEED Locke to be healthy for the rest of the season and it is looking like he will be available for Saturday


• Randall: I love you man but you need to quit whining. This week you were whining about late hits and cheap shots. You are the best player on the field and they are going to be gunning for you. Even when the play is dead.

That's all for now. The Free Enes Sportsthat shirt was a huge hit at the game and we are thinking about making some original merchandise to sell on the website. Again, just a thought but the response has been positive thus far.