Dear Kentucky Football,

Thanks for a fun first four weeks. Thanks for a coach who demonstrates that patience does have merit. (And an administration that stayed patient with him, too.) Thanks for an outside linebacker who proves that the number of stars matters more for astronomers than for football players. Thanks for a running back who is a once in a lifetime kind of player, a guy who runs like life itself is across the goal line or first-down marker, and he’s going to get there every single time. Thanks for a team that’s ranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time in 11 years. So, here’s the thing.

You’ve made it here. You did the hard part of the work. You ended a 31-year losing streak, and did it against a coach who was 8-1 against you. You played a bulldozer of a Mississippi State team with a running quarterback … and you absolutely took their will to live away on national television. You’ve won two games you were supposed to win and now two games that you were a double-digit underdog in.

Now, please, stay awhile.

Too many times in recent years, Kentucky football has teased this kind of breakthrough success. UK started 6-1 in 2007, including beating the top-ranked LSU Tigers, and made their way to No. 8 in the polls. They finished 7-5, unranked, and back in the Music City Bowl. UK started 5-1 in 2014 and 4-1 in 2015, but ended up 5-7 each season.

How do you avoid repeating negative history?

For starters, don’t even think of looking past South Carolina. I know you’re ahead of them in the SEC standings, I know that you’re ranked and they aren’t, and I know that you’ve beaten them 4 consecutive years. But they’re a decent, balanced football team. Unlike Florida, or even unlike Mississippi State, Carolina is solid across the board with a more dangerous passing game, and unlikely to do much to beat itself.

All of these nice things — top 20 rankings and Heisman campaigns and people talking about New Year’s Day bowl games — they’re incumbent on you guys being the Kentucky of 2018 and not the Kentucky of many recent years before that. They’re incumbent on continued hard hitting from a defense that has held opponents to fewer than 280 yards and 14 points per game. The nice things depend on the SEC’s top rushing attack (269 yards per game on the ground) and an attack that converts very well on third down (52.1%, third in the SEC).

Most of all, the nice things are all dependent on winning.

History tells us that it’s more important what your record is the last week of November than the last week of September. Being ranked in September is like being at the top of your school class before you take your first exam.

Because here’s the thing: This really could be your special season.

I know—I wrote a letter to your fans back in August, telling them that it could be the special season, although it probably wouldn’t be. But here’s the rub. Most of the reasons I thought it wouldn’t end up being your season haven’t mattered too much. And most of the positives are pretty much on point. That final stretch of the schedule against Tennessee, Middle Tennessee and Louisville?  Looks even easier now than it did then.

The first four weeks of this season have been amazing. Put that chip back on your shoulder. Find something else to feel disrespected about. Remind yourself that even though you are ranked and South Carolina isn’t and you’ve beaten the Gamecocks four years in a row and you’re playing at home, Vegas still opened its betting with them favored to win Saturday.

And know that the disrespect you are catching is based on the old narrative — that Kentucky is just passing time until basketball, that it will blow any lead, that it will watch any advantage evaporate.

You can kill that old narrative. Just win. Keep winning and all the fun of the first four weeks could be only the beginning.