UK Football: Going from Bad to Worse

After a team like Vanderbilt beats you by 30 points, all you want to do is just shift your entire focus into college basketball. But it’s not so easy anymore to do that. Not since Rich Brooks came into town and saved a program that could only dream of winning 6 games per year and turned them into a team that averaged 7 wins over his last 4 seasons. Kentucky fans have tasted glory and now want--nay FEEL entitled to be competitive and somewhat relevant. What happened to us?


Joker’s first misstep was not making a change on offense until it was too late. Joker’s first year offense included Senior QB Mike Hartline, Locke, Cobb, Matthews, and La’Rod King. With those homerun hitters UK should have won at least 8 games, but the defense gave up too many points for the offense to overcome. UK was 2^nd worst against the run in the SEC in Joker’s first year and they also gave up nearly 30 points per game. No change was made until after the season and the change and even then, UK is still near the bottom of the SEC in stopping the run and still giving up close to 30 ppg.


The 2^nd mistake was staking the entire year on Morgan Newton. Joker basically told Ryan Mossakowski that Newton would start and there was nothing that would change that. Who knows what Moss could have become, but after seeing Newton play for 20 games and I can honestly say it had to have been better that what Newton has become. Newton has led the most inept offense in the SEC. His career high in yards was 255 against Louisville this year. Maxwell Smith in his first ever start passed for 283 yards..with the same offensive unit Newton had.


Joker’s 3^rd mistake was a biggie. He recruited Theltus “Bookie” Cobbins to be a quarterback. However, While Newton was passing for 17 yards in an SEC game, Theltus sat on the bench. While no one on the UK roster could catch a pass, still Bookie sat. It wasn’t until midway into the season when the coaching staff suddenly realized their best playmaker hadn’t even played a snap all year. After Newton went down, Maxwell Smith, a Newton-esque QB that actually completes passes, stepped in to the starting role. That’s all well and good, except for the fact if Smith goes down BOOKIE WILL HAVE TO PLAY ANDINTHE PROCESS VIRTUALLY LOSE A YEAR OF ELIGIBILITY. This coaching staff reacts as quickly as my electric company after a mild storm. Too little, Too late.


Look on the dark side, things are only going to get worse next year. Danny Trevathan, the SEC’s leading tackler will graduate. That will be a gigantic hole to fill as this team struggles to stop anyone who can make a play. Winston Guy, Trevathan’s right hand man and the SEC’s 2^nd leading tackler is also in his last year. UK will have to replace close to 250 tackles next season. UK’s defense will struggle mightily against the SEC offenses next year, you know because they kinda are already shredding us apart THIS YEAR.


The UK coaching staff is already trying to figure out a way to screw up the quarterback situation for next year. Joker will no doubt choose Morgan Newton as the starting qb over Bookie, Smith and stud freshman Patrick Towles. Also, it normally would be a bad thing when you lose your 2^nd leading receiver, but Newton hated passing to him anyway. By the way, that 2^nd leading receiver is Matt Roark, that’s how bad this UK offense is.


UK has enough pieces to be competitive, but this coaching staff has no idea how to use them. The right coach could use 2 sticks of gum and Stephen Garcia to get UK to a bowl. We all know Joker’s time is up, but no one knows why it has to take so long to make a change. I think it’s fair to say that Joker has only one supporter left, and his name is Mitch Barnhart.
Oh yeah, one last note, Vandy beat us by 30 points. Have a great day.