Making sense of a world where UK football’s vibe is more positive than UK basketball’s
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College football early signing period
The early signing period for college football recruits in 2019 is Dec. 18-20. Click here to read all the coverage from the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com.
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We live in disorienting times.
This week, sports fans in these parts find themselves trying to process a world in which the vibe coming off the historically challenged University of Kentucky football program is far more positive than that coming from the regal UK men’s basketball program.
After the first day of the NCAA college football early signing period, the reviews coming in for Mark Stoops’ 2020 class were giddy.
USA Today’s Paul Myerberg listed Kentucky along with Clemson, Ohio State and Cincinnati among his national recruiting winners.
“Kentucky’s haul along the offensive and defensive fronts, highlighted by four-star defensive end Justin Rogers, should form the foundation for the program’s continued success under coach Mark Stoops,” Myerberg wrote.
Rivals national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell also had UK on his list of national winners. Kentucky, which has seen at least five late recruiting battles break in its favor this week “has been one of the biggest surprises down the stretch,” Farrell wrote.
The Rivals analyst listed UK’s signing of Mississippi defensive lineman Josaih Hayes after new Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin made him a priority as “one of the biggest surprises of the day.”
On the Sports Illustrated website, writer Laken Litman extolled the wisdom of Kentucky’s recruiting push into Ohio and Michigan. “How a Change in Recruiting Territory has Kentucky Football on the Upswing,” is the article’s headline.
For decades, The Long Suffering UK Football Fans have yearned to see Kentucky relevant to the national narrative in college football recruiting.
On Wednesday, that day arrived.
It was only the latest manifestation of what has been a run of good news for UK football.
Buoyed by the remarkable performance of wide receiver-turned-quarterback Lynn Bowden, the Cats ended their 2019 regular season by putting a 45-13 smack down on archrival Louisville.
That has been followed by punter Max Duffy and Bowden, as an all-purpose player, being named Associated Press First Team All-Americans.
It marked the second straight season that UK had two AP First Team All-Americans; outside linebacker Josh Allen and offensive guard Bunchy Stallings made it in 2018.
From 1958 through 2017, Kentucky produced a total of four AP First Team All-Americans. The Cats have now had four in the past two seasons.
For a school that had not had a player win a major national college football award based solely on playing excellence since Bob Gain won the 1950 Outland Trophy, these past two years have been a season of bounty.
In 2018, Allen won the Chuck Bednarik Award, the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and the Lott Impact Award as the nation’s best defensive player and the Jack Lambert Award as the country’s best linebacker.
This year, Duffy won the Ray Guy Award, signifying the nation’s best punter while Bowden received the Paul Hornung Award, given to the nation’s most versatile player.
“We’re doing some good things,” Stoops said Wednesday of the national recognition coming to Kentucky. “It’s just, again, a testament to the coaches in our program and the guys we are recruiting and developing as best we can.”
Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if Stoops and troops can keep the good feelings flowing when the Wildcats (7-5) take on Virginia Tech (8-4) in the Belk Bowl on New Year’s Eve.
Long term, the challenge for Kentucky is to leverage its current positive buzz into a level of sustained SEC football significance that the Wildcats program has not had since Bear Bryant was the UK coach (1946-53).
That will still not be easy. It does, however, seem more possible than at any time since Kentucky’s back-to-back seasons of 9-3 and 10-1 in 1976 and 1977.
So far in 2019-20, the UK basketball dynamic has not been so upbeat. Fans expressed unhappiness with a Kentucky early-season home schedule again filled with no-name foes by leaving an unprecedented number of lower-arena seats in Rupp Arena unused.
On the court, UK (8-2) last month took a stunning 67-64 home loss to Evansville, then absorbed another unexpected defeat Wednesday night in Las Vegas.
Utah, which previously lost neutral-court games to Tulane and Coastal Carolina (by 22 points), took down the Wildcats, 69-66.
Kentucky’s main problem is that the Wildcats have no reliable way to score that holds up from game to game. It seems possible that, for the second time in three years, UK has a team where “the parts” do not fit together well.
It’s also true that the season is very young, and John Calipari’s roster has ample athletic upside. If somebody can start making some shots, things may look wholly different for Cal’s Cats by March.
For now, forgive yourself if you feel discombobulated. You are living in a world where the UK football dynamic is more upbeat than the UK basketball vibe.
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