Wildcat Football

It's no secret I'm sort of cranky. Don't believe me, just look at my articles on here. Then, after you read the articles, look at some of the comments calling me a bad fan, bandwagon jumper, kitten-setter-on-firer, whatever. Actually, most of those are on the Facebook pages. But still, it's out there. But today, a reader left a great comment on my most recent article that hits right near where I'm coming from, and I felt compelled to share it here. This comes from reader JPhelps, and I really love his take on the situation, if for no other reason than his agreeing with me. Take a look.

JPhelps:

It's all about a very simple dichotomy. I'll try to break it down as best as I can. You have football fans and you have basketball fans (now, this isn't trying to say that you can't be both, I am both, as are most of you, but bear with me.) I've polled a fair share of both, people who like football better than basketball and vise versa. It's about what you would expect 90-95% in this state are basketball first, but there are some of the opposite that exist. When I ask them this one simple question, this is where I think football fans differ big time from most UK basketball and "both sport" fans in general...

WOULD YOU GIVE UP 15-20 YEARS OF BASKETBALL TO BECOME A CONTENDER IN THE SEC IN FOOTBALL?

All football fans say that they would sacrifice the next 10-20 years in basketball to get competitive enough to one day compete in football. I know... Asinine right? In horse racing, they call this throwing good money at bad money. Why on earth would I put a crisp 100 dollar bill on a horse that's 100/1 when its all but certain it may never win a title... Get my reference?

Football has 3 major problems. First, the BCS. If you lose one game and you are done with your national title aspirations. One sloppy game to rival Louisville first game and its over. Or hell, you can run the freaking gauntlet in the SEC (see Auburn with Cadillac and Ronnie Brown) and not make the championship. Second, the SEC is too freaking good to take a chance like this. With the land mines that wait to derail your championship season every game, its an absolute miracle to come out undefeated (WE ALMOST beat Auburn last year). Thirdly, and thank God for this, UK fans are basketball crazed and the basketball fans and both sport fans would roll over in their grave before they'd let the basketball team slide out of contention.

Contrast that with basketball, where we went 1-7 on the road in conference last year, but come tournament time, when the chips were down, we lost the national title game. UConn/Butler doesn't count.

And for anyone of you who thank, "But we're UK! We could let the program slide and come right back?" You honestly believe that? With as much parity as is in the system today? Really? That's like saying one day a team like Gardner Webb could come into Rupp Arena and actually beat us! Wait a second...

You got to keep fanning the flames, and a good way to look at it. What is a historically great program that let things slide and has been 15-20 years recovering. The dreaded armpit to the North.... Indiana.

I don't know about you, but for this basketball 75% Football 25% fan, I think you are crazy to throw basketball under a bus.

Hard to argue ain't it?

Tags: football, jphelps, reader feedback

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