There's all this talk about Kentucky and bowls and eligibility and where the Cats might go and whom the Cats might play.
I can tell you right here and now that this year Kentucky's bowl game will once again be played in Tennessee.
Knoxville, Tennessee.
The Cats don't need to be bowl-eligible to play there.
Yes, the Kentucky-Tennessee game on Nov. 27 in Neyland Stadium is the game the Big Blue Nation is truly anticipating.
To be sure, the Cats need to handle matters this Saturday and notch the season's obligatory sixth triumph by flogging feeble Vanderbilt.
How feeble? The Commodores are last in the SEC in both total offense, total defense and scoring offense. On the bright side, they are 11th in scoring defense.
Last week, in a 55-14 drubbing by visiting Florida, the Commodores punted 12 times. Poor punter Richard Kent — get this man a leg massage — is on pace to break the team record for most punts in a season, a record set last season.
The 'Dores are converting just 20.7 percent of their third-down opportunities. Next worst among SEC teams in that category is Tennessee. The Volunteers are converting at a 35.6 percent clip.
Need we go on?
How did Vanderbilt beat Ole Miss in Oxford all the way back on Sept. 18?
Houston Nutt, you have some explaining to do.
Joker Phillips will have some explaining to do, too, should the Cats slip Saturday. We shall excuse last Saturday's near slip. It's tough for any SEC school to get up for an FCS team, especially one that lost 66-7 to Hawaii. Playing a flat game against a bad FCS team is one thing, being unprepared for an SEC foe — even one by membership only — with something on the line, is another thing.
It is UK's Senior Day. And did we mention the six-win thing? So the Cats should be ready to play.
"In this league, they're all dangerous," said Phillips on Monday, taking the proper stance when asked if the Commodores were a dangerous opponent.
Yes, just as drinking poisonous liquids is dangerous. So don't drink them. With or without Derrick Locke, the Cats by all rights should dunk the 'Dores and erase all doubt about whether the Cats can meet the necessary post-season qualifications.
As for bowl date and destination, not even your GPS knows for sure. You wonder if the Music City Bowl acting as UK's personal party is growing a little stale as a post-season act. The Liberty Bowl date conflicts with a certain rivalry basketball game — UK-Louisville — to be played on New Year's Day that the state sort of finds interest in watching. And the Birmingham Bowl, to be played on Jan. 8, usually pits a barely-.500 SEC team against a barely-.500 Big East team.
A Kentucky-Louisville rematch anyone?
I'm OK with it, but the thought of Cats-Cards II is a party pooper for Kentucky fans and Mitch Barnhart alike. Besides, Kentucky's real bowl game is Nov. 27.
That would be the date of the UK-Tennessee football game in Knoxville. That would be the game where Kentucky could conceivably snap its unfathomable 25-year losing streak to the once-mighty Vols. That would be the date Kentucky fans would celebrate as the one in which justice was served and the Big Orange curse was broken.
It's no given. Tennessee is 3-6 overall and 0-5 in the SEC, but the Vols did mash hapless Memphis 50-14 last Saturday. They did so with a new starting quarterback in Tyler Bray. Derek Dooley's men have Ole Miss and then Vanderbilt the next two weeks, before welcoming Kentucky to Neyland.
In other words, the Vols could be playing with (a) a lot of momentum, and (b) for a bowl game.
So Kentucky needs to (a) lock up its acknowledged bowl game with a win on Saturday, and (b) gain some momentum for its real bowl game two weeks later.
The one in Knoxville.
Reach John Clay at 859-231-3226 or 1-800-950-6397, ext. 3226, or jclay@herald-leader.com. Read his blog at Kentucky.com.
