In sports, the midseason mark gives us a chance to look back at what we have seen in the first half of the season and start making bold predictions for the second half of the season. Before I get into the my midseason thoughts on the Kentucky Wildcats, let me recap the last year of in my sporting life.

At the midway point of the NBA season, the Boston Celtics had dominated everyone in the NBA and were undefeated against the mighty Miami Heat. Kevin Garnett looked like the KG of 2000, Ray Allen was breaking records and even Shaq was contributing on a regular basis. Then the trade deadline came and the C’s said goodbye to Kendrick Perkins and apparently every ounce of chemistry the team had and backed into the playoffs only to get beat in the second round by Dwayne Wade and the stinking Heat in the second round.

At the midway point of the MLB Season, the Boston Red Sox were tearing through baseball like a sharp knife through hot butter. Adrian Gonzalez was putting up Ted Williams type numbers and Tim Wakefield sprinting toward his 200^th career win. Then September came and the only thing messier than the Sox play on the field was the beer bottles, chicken bones and remote controls from the party thrown by the starting pitchers in the locker room.

The NFL locked out. The NBA locked out. The Bengals refused to trade Carson Palmer and held a team and a fan base hostage. And of top of all of that, WWE gave CM Punk the World Title only to have a gimp like Kevin Nash come out of the crowd and cause him to lose the title to a cartoon character name Alberto Del Rio. Read more…

If you think it has been a bad week to be a Kentucky football fan, well it’s time to think again. Sure, losing to your biggest rival Louisville seems like the bottom of the pit, but keep in mind the Wildcats will be squaring off with a trio of SEC powerhouses that all have their eyes set on a National Championship. Yeah, that is what I said, National Championship. Because when you are Florida, LSU and South Carolina, you just assume that an SEC Championship goes hand in hand with the Sear’s Trophy.

If you ask Will Muschamp, Les Miles and Steve Spurrier what their goal for the season is, I promise none of them would say “win a conference championship.” Heck, when you ask Joker Phillips what his goal is you are like to hear SEC Championship. So why wouldn’t the other schools want the crown jewel of college football?

Anyway, Kentucky will host the Gators this Saturday night at Commonwealth Stadium and for coach Joker Phillips and his Wildcats, there are no keys or winning formulas. It is merely a case of what do we have to do to survive?

It is easy for me to sit back and pick apart what the Kentucky coaching staff is doing wrong. The boo’s in Commonwealth help with the tough calls. Obviously a quarterback draw up the middle on 3^rd and 15 is a bad play call. But I am not a football coach and to be honest, the only football I have ever been very successful at is EA Sports NCAA12 (and maybe fantasy football). But, I have watched enough football to know that if something works you should use it.

Last Saturday against Louisville, the Kentucky offense used a no-huddle, spread offense with Morgan Newton in the shotgun on a touchdown drive to end the first half and their last two drives of the game, one that resulted in a quick score and the other that stalled in the red zone (but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful). With all the success of that offensive set, you would have expected Phillips to say he planned on using it more and try to get the offense moving. Instead, he proclaimed in the post game press conference that his team needed to be more committed to running the ball. What? Read more…

This is a tough week for Kentucky fans. Having to go back to work isn’t easy after Louisville came into Commonwealth Stadium and knocked the Wildcats off 24-17 in a game that really wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. For the third straight week, Joker Phillips’ team gave a disappointing performance.

After dropping the first two passes of the game, Gene McCaskill got to spend the rest of the evening hanging out with his butter-fingered buddy Matt Roark. That was an early indicator that this was going to be a long evening for the Wildcats. Morgan Newton was able to hit Josh Clemons on a 38-yard screen pass that got Kentucky into the red-zone, but the best they could come away with was a field goal and a 3-0 lead. That lead held up until the 2:53 mark in the first quarter when Will Stein hooked up with Andrell Smith for a 38-yard touchdown pass to give Louisville a 7-3 lead.

Early in the second quarter, Stein was shaken up and freshman Teddy Bridgewater stepped in a quarterback. It should have been a chance for Kentucky to key in on the run and dominate the game. In limited action, drives lead by Bridgewater had resulted in negative yardage and a turnover. But Kentucky’s defense swallowed their manhood and allowed the Cardinals to run all over them. Bridgewater was able to connect with DeVante Parker for a 24-yard touchdown pass to make the score 14-3 with a little over a minute to go in the first half.

Just as life was looking it’s bleakest for the Wildcats, Newton and the offense went into the hurry up and was able to march 80 yards downfield and La’Rod King pulled in a 15-yard toss to cut the deficit to 4 going into the half. Read more…

On the eve the Kentucky-Louisville game, I know you have questions and I’ve got answers. So here we go with our little game of 20 Questions, Dirty Bird Style. Oh, I forgot, we will now have a sponsor for this weekly column.

This week’s 20 Questions is brought to you by: The Fake Black Eyed Peas.

1. When and where is the UK vs. U of L game? The game will kick-off September 17^th at 7:00 at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, KY.

2. What, I thought Louisville on played games on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday? Although it will interfere with several of their players and all of their fans making it to their court-ordered community service (picking up trash on I-64), the Cardinals of Louisville will get their first taste of real college football and will play on a Saturday.

3. How can I watch the game? As always, the best way to watch the game is live from the stadium. There are still good seats available and they can be purchased at all ticketmaster outlets. If this game were in Louisville, you could go to Kroger and spend $50.00 on groceries and they would give you as many tickets to the game as you wanted. If you can’t make it to the game, the official broadcast partner of the Wildcats, ESPNU, will have the telecast. Read more…

The Kentucky Wildcats are 2-0 on the season. It hasn’t been pretty, but they have found ways to win. The offense has struggled to get going and the defense has been pretty good, but has also benefited from some lucky breaks that prevented big plays and possible scores. With a three game stretch of ranked opponents looming on the horizon (#16 Florida, @ # 3 LSU and @ # 10 South Carolina), now is the time for the Wildcats to find their way. There could be no better opponent for Kentucky to finally start running on all cylinders against than the Cardinals of Louisville.

This year’s version of the Governor’s Cup doesn’t tout the big names or the ranked teams that it has in the past. It finds both teams searching for an identity and bringing several questions to the field. Regardless, the rivalry is still alive and there is plenty of hate on both sides of the football.

After Louisville lost to Florida International last week, head coach Charlie Strong said that Kentucky was clearly a better team and the Wildcats were everything that the Cardinals wanted to be. Kentucky head coach Joker Phillips has dismissed the notion that his team should be a heavy favorite and that they should walk through this game with very little effort, stating that in a rivalry game like this, you have to throw record books and scouting reports out the window.

So, with both coaches doing their best Lou Holtz impersonation (it’s no coincidence that both men used to coach under Holtz) and trying to build their opponent into the college version of the New England Patriots, it’s time to take a realistic look at this weekends game. Read more…

1.       Alabama’s win over Penn State continued the tango that the Crimson Tide and LSU Tigers are having for the number 2 ranking in the AP Top 25. Both teams have some work to do before they get there, but if they can remain undefeated going into their showdown November 5^th, we could be watching a BCS semi-final at Bryant-Denney Stadium.

2.       Is it possible for the loser of the LSU @ Bama game to go undefeated for the remainder of the season and possibly see an all SEC BCS Championship game?

3.       Michael Brockers’ interception was one of the most athletic plays I have ever seen. Keep in mind that he is 6’6”, 306 pounds.

4.       Gene Chizik needs to invest in a lottery ticket. He has had the luckiest 12 months in the history of college football coaches. A quick recap: 1) December 2010, Cam Newton is declared ineligible and then he is declared eligible and helps lead Auburn to an SEC Championship and a BCS Championship.  2) Utah State chokes on the Plains as Aubun scores two touchdowns and recovers an onside kick in the last two minutes of the season opener. 3) The Tigers hold off a late rally by Mississippi State and Ryan Smith stopped Bulldog QB Chris Relf at the 1-inch line to secure the victory and make the defending National Champions 2-0.

5.       Dan Mullen was visibly upset with the referees at the end of the game Saturday. I doubt if he was inviting them down to Toomer’s Drug after the game for a milkshake.

6.       Melvin Ingram had a great game after running 68 yards and scoring a touchdown on a fake punt and then recovering a fumble for a touchdown to clinch the win for the Gamecocks. The Georgia mascot, Hairy Dog, did not have a great day, but the shot of him on ESPN’s telecast after the fake punt pretty much summed up the state of Georgia football.

7.       Steve Spurrier has more weapons than the cast of the Discovery Channel reality show “Sons of Guns”. Marcus Latimore, Alshon Jeffery, Ingram, Jadeveon Clowney, and Stephon Gillmore are just a few pieces of that talented team. If he can’t win the SEC with this team, he isn’t going to win it.

8.       Georgia is 15-15 in their last 30 games. Mark Richt has to be feeling the pressure and I can’t imagine his approval rating in Athens is very high. I heard one sports talk radio caller yesterday say that he would love to have Richt as a neighbor or a deacon at his church, but he didn’t think he was much of a football coach. That radio show was in Kentucky. What are they saying about him Georgia?

9.       Are Kentucky fans really so tired of complaining about their football coaches that they are now complaining about the coaches at other schools? See number 8.

10.   Is it just me or does it seem weird to you that Florida is being vastly overlooked this season. Will Muschamp has them 2-0 going into this weekend against undefeated Tennessee. I still think it is weird that there has been more talk about Derek Dooley’s pants this season than the Gators.

11.   Speaking of Derek Dooley’s pants, those things are hideous. The only thing that would be worse would be if ADIDAS made him a pair that had a checkerboard pattern like the end zones in Neyland Stadium.

12. Tyler Bray is a great passer but his decision making is still questionable at best. Keep in mind, he is the owner of this Back Tattoo:

13.   How many times in the history of the SEC has a game against Vanderbilt during the third week of the season meant so much to a team’s future? If Houston Nutt can’t get it together quickly, Sandra Bullock will be taking resumes for the new head coach at Ole Miss.

14.   Danny Trevathan is a tackling machine. He led the SEC last year with 145 tackles and he already has 26 this season and added his first career interception on Saturday. I know people will call me a homer, but can you name me another player in the conference that is more important to his team than Trevathan?

15.   I guess the NFL Scouts that said Cam Newton didn’t have good mechanics have moved their focus to Tim Tebow for the time being.

16.   It is exciting to see SEC guys doing well in the NFL. Newton was great, AJ Green caught a game winning touchdown pass, Matthew Stafford led the Lions to a win and Randall Cobb might have had the highlight of the year with his 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. I know it makes me sound old, but it feels good to watch these young men do so well. It’s like watching your own kid win the spelling bee.

17.   This was my first week of not being a fantasy football player in over 12 years. It went well and I am not having any withdrawals yet and it was actually pretty nice to not have to check the score of the Buffalo/Kansas City game every five minutes.

18.   Kudos to the fans in Happy Valley this weekend. I watched part of the game and it looked like Beaver Stadium was rocking. Too bad you had no shot to beat Alabama.

19.   Sorry I haven’t mentioned Arkansas. They are averaging 51.5 points per game but they haven’t played anybody. I just have to wonder if it is worth the money you spent to get those teams to come to town for glorified practices. You have another one this weekend with Troy. I guess we will see how much these games pay off when you face off with the Crimson Tide in 2 weeks.

20.   There should be some great games this week. If your aren’t going to any games, orders some wings, find a comfy chair and use this schedule to catch the best action: Ole Miss @ Vandy – 12:21 on ESPN3.com, Tennessee @ Florida – 3:30 on CBS, Louisville @ Kentucky – 7:00 on ESPNU. Thursday night, we have LSU @ Miss. St, 8:00 on ESPN.

It wasn’t exactly the performance everyone was looking for, but the Kentucky Wildcats fought their way to a win on Central Michigan in their home opener and now they can finally focus on their game against in-state rival Louisville next Saturday.

The Chippewas used their monstrous offensive line to keep the Wildcats out of the back field and give quarterback Ryan Radcliffe time to find his receivers and move the ball at will during the first half. Kentucky’s defense did a good job of creating 3^rd and long situations by slowing the CMU attack on 1^st and 2^nd down, but had trouble forcing 4th downs.  This allowed the Chippewas to take an 13-10 lead into halftime and had several members of the Big Blue Nation booing the Wildcats as they left the field.

During that dreadful first half, CMU out gained UK 227 to 94 in yardage and held the ball for nearly 20 minutes. Just when Wildcat fans thought that the offenses struggles couldn’t get any worse, Sr. Linebacker Danny Trevathan intercepted a pass and got it into red-zone only to see a missed field goal to end the drive.

After Raymond Sanders fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half (after what to me looked to be the worst blown call in the history of SEC football), the Kentucky defense started playing the way everyone knew they were capable of playing. Led by Danny Trevathan (13 tackles, int.) and Winston Guy (13 tackles), the defense never allowed the Chippewas to get beyond the Kentucky 30 yard line in the second half and held them scoreless for the last 35 minutes of the game. Morgan Newton and the offense finally started clicking late in the 3^rd quarter and scored on three consecutive possessions, including a 34-yard touchdown catch by La’Rod King and an impressive 87-yard run by Josh Clemons. Read more…

The Kentucky Wildcats (1-0) will return to Commonwealth Stadium this weekend to open their home schedule for the 2011 season.  They will host the Central Michigan Chippewas (1-0) on Saturday at 12:00 pm with ESPNU carrying all the action.

The Wildcats return home from a win over Western Kentucky in Nashville, TN that left fans disappointed and confused. It was a game in which the offensive line couldn’t keep the Hilltoppers out of the backfield and the wide receivers couldn’t catch the ball, but special teams and the defense kept Western away from the endzone and helped Kentucky walk away with a win.

The Chippewas will enter the Bluegrass State following a 21-6 victory over South Carolina State. CMU had impressive performances on both sides of the ball and were led by sophomore running back Zurlon Tipton (73 yards, TD) and junior quarterback Ryan Radcliff (168 passing yards, 2 TDs).

How can the Cats claw out a victory?

Since the Cats opened the season on a Thursday night, that gave the Big Blue Nation an extra day to voice their complaints. In the past week, we have heard Morgan Newton claim that he didn’t play as bad as he thought he was playing, we have seen offensive line coach Mike Summers get into a heated disagreement with a beat writer, and we have heard La’Rod King say that he doesn’t care what the fans say. I don’t claim to be a football genius, but none of those things scream confidence too me. Read more…