Kentucky football mailbag: Alcohol sales, true freshmen and the meaning of life
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UK in the 2019 Belk Bowl
The University of Kentucky will play Virginia Tech in the 2019 Belk Bowl on Dec. 31. Read more about the Wildcats’ opponent and destination.
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I put out the call for questions on Twitter before departing for the Belk Bowl on Thursday. Some were related to UK football, most weren’t — perfect!
Here are some answers, coming to you from an undisclosed hotel room in Uptown.
Note: Questions were edited for clarity.
Q. What would the earnings potential be if Mitch Barnhart allowed beer sales at games? — Lazy Wildcat Statue (Lazy Wildcat Statue — @UKCatStatue)
This was one of several questions/statements shared by the self-described parody account, and the one that probably matters to the most readers.
Barnhart when explaining UK’s decision to not sell alcohol at sporting events in the 2019-20 school year did not cite potential revenue as a major factor in the school’s decision-making.
Kentucky was one of seven schools in the Southeastern Conference that decided not to allow alcohol sales once the SEC lifted its ban in May. Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Vanderbilt opted in, and South Carolina recently reversed course.
LSU — by far the most successful school of the bunch — generated $2.259 million in revenue from alcohol sales to the general public. The school made a little bit more than $3 per fan in 2019 compared to 2018, according to Robert J. Munson, LSU’s senior associate athletic director. Texas A&M generated about $1.3 million in its first go-around with public alcohol sales.
Based on those figures, it’s tough to think UK would have generated seven-digit figures when it comes to alcohol revenue. Kroger Field has room for about 40,000 fewer patrons per game than Kyle Field and Tiger Stadium, so it’s likelier to be closer to Missouri — whose stadium seats 71,000 — than those SEC West giants. Mizzou generated more than $600,000 over seven home games this season.
The only definite answer is this: Kentucky would make more money via the sale of alcohol to the general public than it makes through the non-sale of alcohol to the general public. Barnhart knows that, and — right or wrong — he seems earnest when talking about revenue not being the sole driver on this subject.
(P.S. Alcohol will be sold at the Belk Bowl.)
Q. Which freshmen will likely play in the Belk Bowl and still keep their (redshirt) eligibility? How important will it be that they play? Which true freshmen are likely future stars of UK football? How has Amani Gilmore progressed as a quarterback and does he have a legit future at UK given who UK has signed at QB? (Bruce Simpson — @brucesimpsonky)
I wonder if Bruce is curious about the youngest talent on UK’s roster? ;-)
Bowl games are curious creatures. In my view, they’re glorified exhibitions more than true reflections of the teams that are participating, but the additional practice time is great, particularly for guys who are likelier to compete for playing time next year than they were this year. It’s not crucial that they actually play in the bowl game, but every live rep helps — for one’s confidence, if nothing else.
Jared Casey and J.J. Weaver, both natives of Louisville, could (should) see some snaps on New Year’s Eve. They each only played in three games this season and got on the field for UK’s shellacking of their hometown university. Kentucky will for the second straight season lose its best sack-producer (Calvin Taylor Jr., this time), so they’ll have their chances to show what they can do moving forward. Belk Bowl wild-card watch: Tae Tae Crumes (another Louisvillian).
Gilmore’s name hasn’t come up in media settings since mid-November, and then it was only brought up because I was personally interested in how he’d developed behind-the-scenes while Lynn Bowden was developing on the fly. Quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw and receivers coach Michael Smith at that time had positive things to say about Gilmore’s progress. Since that time he got on the field in one game — UK’s win over Tennessee Martin.
Gilmore is the best person to ask about his current place in the pecking order, and he hasn’t been available to the media since the preseason. The fact that a wide receiver — an uber-talented one, to be fair — leaped him in the quarterback pecking order could have been discouraging, but it seemed to encourage progress. His Twitter posts make it seem he’s still enthusiastic about being in Lexington and wanting others to join him (see: fellow Louisiana native Joel Williams, who signed during the early period).
He planned to play baseball when he got here, too, so if that still happens, his spring participation could be up in the air. My guess is, if Gilmore does play baseball and doesn’t go through spring camp, his place on the depth chart will be the same next fall as this one. There’s a lot of “ifs” to figure out between now and then, though.
It’s been touched on before, but the biggest accomplishment involving UK’s freshman class is that it made it to the end of 2019 with every member’s redshirt intact.
Q. What is the meaning of life? (Belk Bowl — @belkbowl)
42. Thank u, next.
(Seriously though, the Belk Bowl’s Twitter account is fun stuff.)
Q. Flying or driving? If driving, did you make a playlist for the trip? And if so, what’s a couple of songs from that list? (BackintheSouth — @Wildcats_Braves)
I drove, but am more of a podcast person than a music person when it comes to my windshield time, anymore. I worked through a backlog of a few favorites (Kotaku Splitscreen, No Dunks) on my way here and plan to plow through some episodes of Binge Mode: Harry Potter that have been living on my phone forever during my drive back to Lexington.
I’ve never felt terribly adequate at playlist creation — I fear someday the graveyard will be discovered in which my high school girlfriends have laid burned CDs to rest. While road-tripping with a friend back-and-forth to Atlanta in February, though, we just set my Amazon Music account to random and let it play under our conversation the entire trip. I enjoyed that quite a bit, so in the spirit of reminiscing, here are the first 10 songs that played, in order, as I wrote this column.
1. “In a Real Love” — Phil Vassar
2. “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage” — Panic! At The Disco
3. “Over You” — Daughtry
4. “Getaway Car” — Taylor Swift
5. “Girl Like You” — Jon Wolfe
6. “Since U Been Gone” — Kelly Clarkson
7. “Shut-Up and Smile” — Bowling For Soup
8. “Are You Ever Gonna Love Me” — Chris Cagle
9. “Red Lips, Blue Eyes, Little White Lies” — Gary Allan
10. “Cold Blue Moonlight” — Cory Branan
Q. What are the main differences between following college and high school sports? (Dan Evans — @dlevans5)
For those who might not know: This is my first year covering University of Kentucky football for the Lexington Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com. I was the high school sports reporter for the same news organization the previous four years.
The biggest work-flow differences are ease of access and exclusivity. UK is a national brand, and the school’s communications team treats it accordingly. They are accommodating but present an extra layer of “security” that, outside of some rare instances, doesn’t usually exist when you’re covering sports at the high school level. If there’s an interesting story angle to pursue at the high school level, there’s little in the way of telling it — that’s not always the case in college sports, which are much more regimented and protected by people who are good at their jobs.
Exclusivity goes hand-in-hand with that — coverage of UK sports isn’t hard to come by in this state. Breadth and depth varies among entities, but there’s something out there for just about anyone who cares to go looking. We are all trying to share compelling and unique glimpses of one program to the same eyeballs out there, so standing out from the crowd is much more difficult on the college beat than in the high school realm. There is, of course, generally much greater interest in college sports than high school sports, so it can be incredibly rewarding when an original story idea flourishes.
I loved covering high school sports and look forward to being involved in our coverage in a more limited capacity, as I was during the KHSAA state finals this month. I commend the job Jared Peck (the new @HLpreps) has done in the lead role — it’s a mental grind in a way that the UK beat, so far, has not been. There are challenges in both realms, but I feel like I have a little more time to breathe these days (or maybe I’ve just convinced myself that’s the case).
The biggest similarity? Most of the time, they’re both fun as hell.
Did you enjoy this mailbag? Let me know — and feel free to ask a question for possible future inclusion on Twitter (@JoshMooreHL) or via email (jmoore@herald-leader.com). Thanks for reading!
This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 7:24 AM.
