Another Saturday, another first quarter debacle, another loss in the SEC. If the Kentucky football team is anything it is consistent. For the past 6 weeks the Wildcats have gone into the second half of the football game losing. And for the last 5 out of 6 weeks they have lost the game, the only outlier being the comeback victory over South Carolina. Now there are fans, players and player's Mamas pitching fits all over the place. Let us address these issues one by one:
- Fans are calling for Mike Hartline's benching and Joker Phillip's firing. These are what we level headed fans call "lunatics" and "morons". A). Mike Hartline is the best throwing quarterback in the SEC (don't believe me check out his stats). Without Hartline we may be worse off than we are. Lay off the kid. He's heard you whining about him since he got here and he has done a great job. One of the few bright spots on the team right now. It's not like he is Adam "The Sausage King of Louisville" Froman. That guy just plain sucks. B). I'm not going to say that Joker is not above criticism here. Hartline doesn't deserve it and Joker only deserves a fair amount. Right now he needs to get control of his team, instill some discipline and come up with a better game plan. Especially on the defensive side of things. Those of you calling for him to be fired need to shut up. He is a first year coach in the toughest conference in the land, there will be bumps in the road. We are in no different position than we have been in previous years. We still have a chance to go 7-5. As long as the team is stable and doesn't have a worse record than in previous years then don't complain. He has years to take the Cats to the next level. It's not like he is losing in the Big East or something.
- Matt Roark and Chris Matthews hurt the team. Roark was out due to his DUI suspension and Matthews was suspended for the first quarter of the game against MSU for violating team rules. The game could have been different if both of them were there for the entire game. Way to go fellas! Derrick Locke has been out for 4 weeks and some idiot fans were giving him a hard time on twitter about his injury and Mike Hartline's play. Locke responded to the static by telling them to jump off a cliff and I can't blame him. Let me speak to the idiots once again: about 99% of you never played a minute of college athletics in your life. Quit living vicariously threw these kids and grow up. I love my Wildcats and criticize play but I never personally attack them on Facebook and twitter. They work hard and are under a lot of pressure. As long as they are not driving drunk, beating women or getting tazed, then they are ok in my book.
- The last bit of turmoil came from Donald Russell's mother. Apparently she took the the Internet to defend her baby boy because he didn't play that much on Saturday. Russell is just a Freshman and was a highly touted recruit that was coveted by multiple SEC, ACC and Big East schools. I wouldn't brag about that last one though. Raymond Sanders has been running the ball better in Locke's absence and Russell has dropped from the #2 guy to #3 on the depth chart. According the Russell's mom the coaches have been giving him an extra hard time and questioned his heart and running style. I'm not sure how much of this or if any of it is true. If it is true then Joker needs to rip some ass and then build this kid up. We don't need anybody of his caliber transferring. He probably just needs some time to develop. His mom needs to let her little baby become a man and quit running to his defense with crying towel in hand. There's not much worse than an overbearing crazy mother in college athletics. Remember Alex Legion? Neither does anybody else.
To sum up I really think there are some things that need work. The Cats need to lick their wounds and refocus on the rest of the season. The next 3 games are extremely winnable. 7-5 is no worse than what we have been doing and it would be nice to go to another bowl game. Again, there is plenty of time to take the next step.
The Cats have lost 5 of the last 6. Yes, the SEC is tough. The SEC was tough in the past, the SEC will be tough in the future...there is no debate there, we all know it. Why is the SEC so good? Simple, they get the best players. The best players want to play in the SEC. They want to play tough matchups every weekend. They want the exposure that comes with SEC play. Membership in the SEC conference comes with a recruiting advantage that can only be rivaled by the tradition of Notre Dame. UK benefits from that. UK will have the opportunity to get players that UofL and a ton of other programs don't have. If you take UK and stick them in the Big East, your recruiting advantage is gone. The mediocre success that UK has now is just a product of being affiliated with the SEC. The thought that UK would dominate a lesser conference is just crazy thinking. UK is on an equal playing field with every other team in the SEC and the result is 5 losses in 6 games...that does not translate into success in a different conference. If you stick UK in the Big East or the Mountain West, they lose their recruiting advantage. They instantly become a average team in a bad conference instead of a bad team in a good conference. UK fans, please stop living off the success of your conference...a conference that you don't compete in.
ReplyDeleteI agree with just about everything you said. I am a UK fan that is sick of saying, "Well, we play in the SEC, so that's why we lose." It's going to be tough getting over that hump but not impossible. But I do think that UK would be more than average most of the time, not all of the time, in the ACC, Big East or maybe even the Mountain West.
ReplyDelete