Listen to what Mitch Barnhart had to say about Kentucky football and bowl game

Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart met with the media on Sunday night to promote Kentucky football’s appearance in the Dec. 29 Music City Bowl, but he also had interesting things to say about what happened in the Louisville game, the season, attendance and head coach Mark Stoops.

Jennifer Smith of the Herald-Leader has the story on the UK-Northwestern matchup at Nissan Stadium in Music City. Ranked No. 21 in the AP poll, Northwestern won its final seven games to finish the regular season 9-3. In successive weeks, the Wildcats earned overtime wins over Iowa (17-10), Michigan State (39-31 in three overtimes) and at Nebraska (31-24).

Jared Peck of the Herald-Leader has five good questions about the Music City Bowl. There’s a lot of good, general information about the game in the post.

I wrote on Barnhart’s press conference, especially his plea to fans to help lift the team up after the disappointing end to the season with losses to Georgia (42-13) and Louisville (44-17). As a podcast, I posted the interview in its entirety.

Here is video of Barnhart saying how the team acted against Louisville is “not who we are” and his challenge to the team and the fans to “lift each other up” in Nashville.

Here is video of Kentucky players Charles Walker, Stephen Johnson and Courtney Love talking about the bowl game.

And Johnson, UK’s senior quarterback, has given up his dreadlocks for a new post-season look.