To make some SEC noise, Kentucky must snap a 40-year streak

I entered the lobby of the Wynfrey Hotel at 8 a.m. Wednesday only to find, much to my surprise, a mob of people jockeying for position, apparently eager to snap a picture of my arrival.

It didn’t take long, however, to realize I was far from the center of attention. A quick glance to my right revealed the deflating truth. There, in the flesh, entering in the door beside me was none other than Alabama Coach Nick Saban. Perhaps the name rings a bell.

“Roll Tide!” yelled one fan as I quickly ducked to the side as if it attempting to evade Saban’s Crimson Tide defense on an all-out blitz. “Roll Tide!”

Welcome to SEC Football Media Days 2017.

Oh yeah, Kentucky was there, too. Only it wasn’t really “Kentucky was there, too” with the “too” a definite dis, as if UK’s presence at this zealous four-day nod to the upcoming season didn’t really matter. Maybe, just maybe, maybe this year, Kentucky football does matter.

“If I had some guts, I’d pick Kentucky to win the East,” a fellow media member told me during the morning session, though he immediately admitted he failed to possess the necessary conviction.

It’s not a completely crazy notion. Start with the seven wins last year. The victory at Louisville. The program’s first bowl bid since 2010. The 17 returning starters. The fact that head coach Mark Stoops is heading into his fifth season.

“This team has more confidence,” quarterback Stephen Johnson told interested media members, adding, “I think we’ve got a great team coming back. We can win a lot of games, especially in the SEC.”

The goal should be five SEC wins. That would give the Cats a winning conference season, something UK hasn’t achieved since Art Still was terrorizing league offenses and Derrick Ramsey was bulldozing past league defenses for Fran Curci way back in 1977. That team went 6-0. And that was 40 years ago. Four decades. Anniversary time.

Curci’s 1979 team was 3-3 in the SEC. Jerry Caliborne’s 1984 club was 3-3. Bill Curry — yes, Bill Curry — went 4-4 in 1993. Hal Mumme produced back-to-back 4-4 Air Raid seasons in 1998 and 1999. Rich Brooks was 4-4 in 2006. And Stoops’ Cats went 4-4 last year. That’s the closest the Cats have come to finally lifting their heads above the SEC shark waters.

It won’t be easy this year. It’s the SEC. It’s never easy. After a 17-10 home win over South Carolina last year, the Cats must visit Columbia in September. UK hasn’t beaten Florida since 1986. After a 40-38 home win over Mississippi State last year, the Cats must visit Starkville in October. There’s a November trip to Georgia, my pick to win the East.

On a happier note, unlike last year Alabama isn’t on the 2017 schedule. Neither is LSU or Auburn, the two most likely teams to push the Tide in the SEC West. Missouri, Tennessee and Ole Miss must come to Kroger Field. And UK road games at Vanderbilt often feature more fans in Kentucky blue-and-white than Commodores’ black-and-gold, though that certainly guarantees nothing.

As seasoned UK football fans are well aware, this could all be happy talk. And this is the talking season, after all. Kentucky has had tons of starters back before. It’s been the subject of conference dark-horse talk before. It’s claimed confidence and offseason momentum and still managed to not win more SEC games than it lost.

Will this year be different?

We end as we started with Saban, whose team is in the midst of a 17-game SEC winning streak by an average of 20.1 points per game, yet said with a straight face Wednesday, “I think there’s a lot of parity in this league.”

Maybe Kentucky will prove him right.

This story was originally published July 12, 2017 at 5:28 PM with the headline "To make some SEC noise, Kentucky must snap a 40-year streak."