NEWS: Sam Maxwell out for bowl game

Tough lose today for the football cats. Sam Maxwell will have season ending surgery, ending his career as a wildcat. My defensive MVP by far this season for the cats. We wish Sam luck as he continues, hopefully, with his career on Sundays.

Halftime of the basketball game…and wow…

Toughness

After the game on Saturday every UK fan was sick. It was hard. That was probably the toughest lose in the Rich Brooks era, maybe outside any lose in LSU year. But, because this was the best chance, I believe, to win this game…it hurts.

Here is my problem though. We have the most outstanding coach in college football. WHAT?!?! Yes. Rich Brooks has done this the right way. In a world when you have the big heads cheating to get the top recruits, Rich Brooks was developed the talent here at UK and I salute him. I’m not saying that every coach cheats, because I really respect what Nick Saban and Urban Meyer so at their positions. Yet, you look at someone like Pete Carroll, who is looked at as a genius of his craft, but it always seems that his program is investigated every other hour for recruiting violations. Unlike John Calipari, Pete Carroll is named, along with is assistants, even when they take new jobs (*cough* Lane Kiffin *cough*). Yet, our coach does it right and keeps building this program.

I just can’t express how happy I am with this program. And it is only going to get better. Again the Cats will get the month leading up to the bowl game to make huge strides. This has been the largest step for the Brooks years, having this month to grow. After not having a bye week for what…three years? This month is going to be huge. To tell you the truth I can’t wait to see what the group does in the bowl. And probably a great chance to play another rising program in North Carolina. Here is to you Coach Brooks and your players for a great season.

Busy Day

Today after a report on Mike Hartline being out for the season, Papa Brooks talks about the QB situation.

• Brooks said that Fidler and Newton, who’s redshirt has been lifted, will compete in practice for the starting spot for the upcoming game against Auburn. This, I believe, could be bad for Hartline in the long run. If Newton does get this starting spot and plays well, this could the beginning of a new era for UK football. Everyone knows that Newton is the future of this program and if he can show he has the SEC skills he may not give up this spot for awhile.
• Brooks also comes out to say that Hartline is out at least two to four games. Now everything is riding on the results of the MRI tomorrow. So we will wait and see.
• One thing we know for sure is that we will not see Cobb at starting QB. Brooks said that we will see a lot more of the wildcat formation. He also said that Cobb is a better wide out than QB, which I agree with.

This is all getting interesting. Hartline played well until he was injured. So if Newton can come out and show us what he has, UK could have an explosive offense, which will be needed with a thin secondary.

Links:

UK Athletics

Vaught bringing it today…..1 …..2

NEWS: Hartline out for the year

Sources tell WHAS11 in Louisville that UK QB Mike Hartline is out for the year after leaving Saturday’s lose to South Carolina. He will be replaced by Fidler and Cobb. I don’t know what is going on with the Newton situation, but you have to think you will see him in one of the games after the road game against Auburn. I also hope there is not a single UK fan celebrating this injury, because if Hartline doesn’t leave that game, we win. He was punching every critic in the mouth yesterday, including this one. Get better Hartline.

Another Coach Cal tweet for KSR and a great P Pat story

Today we had a double dip for this site in the form of another Coach Cal tweet to end Marc Maggard. Though Coach Cal’s tweets linking KSR are not to take down Marc Maggard, it is however killing the people over at TBK. This is great because Maggard and his Maggheads have always tried to say that the UK athletic department dislikes Jones and his site. Well Coach Cal disagrees and so do his players and their parents. It makes me happy because Maggard again is proven wrong. Keep it coming Cal.

Also the story linked was a great story by one of the writers on KSR. This also just proves something again, that Patrick Patterson is a UK great for every aspect of what he does for this university. He is a man amongst boys and this just adds to it. This is also another reason KSR is just better than TBK. Well everything is better than TBK….

LeBron camps at UK

LeBron James is expected to be holding camps at some point in the next couple of years at UK. Larry Vaught has the information.

Turnovers Kill

So yesterday’s UK/Bama game was a game of ups and downs.

• Mike Hartline: Today was the day that most UK fans and I believe the coaching staff were dreading. Though last week Hartline looked less than stellar, you could look at the whole team’s play in that game. Yet, yesterday, with a good running game, and a kicking game that kept UK in the field position game, Hartline made bad throw after bad throw. Other than the touchdown throw to Cobb, which was amazing, Hartline was throwing ahead, behind, over and around the UK receivers. I know the coaching staff thinks this is the best option and I am not one to disagree with papa. But, with two highly recruited players behind Hartline, one has to think when the time would be to check out one of them, Newton being the best choice. Newton was rated as high as a 5-star recruit and you can’t tell me that he wouldn’t do any worse than Hartline. The interceptions yesterday looked like those of an intramural football contest.
• Ryan Tydlacka: WOW! Probably the best player on the field for the Cats, minus Locke and Cobb. Showed improvement last week and totally blew the fans of the blue and white away with his punts yesterday. He was the reason UK was still in this game before halftime. This is what the coaches were looking for to help with field position and something that could be huge later on this season.
• Lones Seiber: Two great kicks yesterday, still the worst player in the history of college football to break his school’s career points lead. Congrats I guess.
• Derrick Locke: It is great to see this kid back. Other than the fumble, which was huge I might add, he ran with confidence and we saw that break away speed at times. Nothing makes  me more happy than seeing him be 100% healthy. Running, catching, and returning. Heck, put him of defense, maybe he can tackle better than those guys.
• Secondary (non-tackling): Great overall performance. Winston Guy Jr. was a ball hawk. A couple of bad attempts at tackling by the young man, but in on every play…even at the line of scrimmage. Randall Burden was great in the absence of the awful Paul Warford. Julio Jones with only two receptions. Trevard Lindley is doubtful for the game this weekend. Hope he can recover quick, just for his own personal benefit.
• Randell Cobb: Simple. Get him the ball…period.
• Stat of the game: Turnovers hurt, yes. But the Cats were able to collect one sack on the QB. One. That is not going to get it done. The D has to learn to get to the QB. This is why running Quarterbacks kill us.

Overall, I thought the Cats showed improvements outside of Hartline from the Florida game. So just keep moving forward and get ready for the Cocks. I think we have a chance, as long as they don’t play out of their comfort level.

Alabama Gameday Links

I love the Cingular logos behind him....

It has been awhile, and there will be some thoughts today about the game, Big Blue Madness, and the idiot himself…Marc Maggard.

First here are some links for today’s showdown at the Commonwealth.

Drew Franklin is becoming one of my favorite reads on the internet. Here is his “They are who we thought they were”

Another from Mr. Franklin: F.A.A.Q.

Chip Cosby on the Wildcat

Brett Dawson on simplifying the offense

Chip Cosby on UK ramping it up for Alabama

Cats go down; Tebow too.

So that was bad. That hurt probably worse than last year. Like one commentator said, those penalties had nothing to do with Florida’s talent. Yes, in the end the Florida talent wins. But, the Cats did nothing to help their cause. They were just lost on offense for most of the game.

The biggest news coming out of this game is the hit heard around the south. I am taking the position of I hope everything is OK with Tebow. I wish no harm on a player and hope that he is back in two weeks after the Gators bye. The UK fans on Facebook and message boards praising the hit that took down Tebow are over the line. It was a great hit and it is football and these things happen. But being happy a player was sent to the hospital is crazy! So I wish him well.

Response from UofL to KSR hate day

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST KENTUCKY FANS

Now…breath…

He wants a full body of work comparison…

Bowl Games:

UofL 6-7-1

UK 8-5

Conference Championships:

UofL 7 (1-Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, 2 Missouri Valley Conference, 3 Conference USA, 1 Big East)

UK 2 (Southeastern Conference)

All-Time Records:

UofL 438-420 .520

UK 560-552 .503

National Championships:

UofL 0

UK 1 (Kentucky beat Oklahoma in the 1951 Sugar Bowl and claimed the 1950 Sagarin National Championship.)

———————————————————————————————————————————–

So what does this tell us? Well really nothing. He was upset that UK fans say that the UofL program started in 2003. Well you should probably run with it then because you can not compare the SEC to any of the conferences that UofL has been apart of. UK had a top 30 recruiting class this year, yet was 12th in the SEC. How can you be upset that we use that card? It is fact! We NEVER said we were great because UK is in the SEC, BUT, we will tell you that UofL would have no better chance than UK.

Let me talk about hypocrites with this guy. You say UK fans are hypocrites? Well, all UofL fans could do last year was try to make fun of UK because they were going to the Liberty Bowl. All of this being done while you were at the….house? UK has not been in the big name bowls..no. But Louisville hasn’t either. Other than the Orange bowl in 2006 (which was the last bowl), where have you been? And in those “crappy bowls” we were playing in, UK has wins over Clemson, Florida State and ECU (which beat Virginia Tech and Big East power West Virginia). Not a very good try by you my friend.

So you say Rich Brooks deserves a lot of credit but point out that he is 8 games under .500. OK, you know nothing about this and did no check on this history before you opened your mouth. He took a horrible Oregon program over and turned it into a Pac-10 powerhouse. Now he has taken a UK program from probation to three straight bowl wins. Hey how about this…after he is done here you take him to turn around your program when your sad excuse for a coach gets fired. You did it with another UK coach who turned our basketball program around too. Well of course he hasn’t done near as much at UofL as he did at UK.

He points out the bad teams we have beat over the past few years, which is true and accurate. BUT, we didn’t add in, LSU (national championship year), Clemson, Florida St., Arkansas (McFadden team), Georgia, UofL (#9 in the country), and ECU (who beat their own conference lead, West Virginia). Also he didn’t take a look at their own team. UofL loses UCONN (twice), Syracuse (twice), Rutgers (63-14), Memphis (2003 – 37-7), and South Florida (like 100 times and don’t try to tell me they are good, the Big East is just bad). Non-Conference wins (which he pointed out about UK) over UK’s 14 game non-conference streak, Indiana State, Murray, Tennessee Tech, Memphis, and MTSU. And you point out Miami of Ohio…take a look at your bowl wins for that game.

So what does this prove? Really nothing, but the UofL fan thought it did and thought he won. HAHAHAHA! So continue to read into this all you want. UK has been in the SEC for a long, long time. UofL has been in bad conferences, even when they are in a BCS one. And they have had no more success than UK has in football. So the little brother/big brother comments continue until little brother steps up with something.

Come to daddy for a hug…

*UPDATE*

Saw this on KSR…well just watch.