Kentucky Football: Believe!

But I bet Gatorpilot will agree that assuming that Florida has a win setting on the table next Saturday would be very fortuitous in this crazy football season. We have a pro-esk offense that is the foundation of an overachiving team with a bunch of chips on their shoulders.

One of the chips, labeled "49-0", just fell away. Another chip, labeled "Finish off the Gators", still remains.

Those of us who have played and studied football (most all of you on this blog) know that despite the glory headlines for skill position players -  games, seasons and championships are won in the trenches.  (no, I was not a lineman)

With that preamble......how about a huge shout out for the UK Lineman - both offensive and defensive.  Going into the season, I really didn't know what to expect of this bunch and thus was thinking a 6-6 result at best.

When the LSU Tigers took the field and I got my first in person look at guys like Glen Dorsey....I was really concerned.  The LSU defense looked every bit as mean, strong, confident, experienced, deep, big and fast as advertised.  Not to mention that one LSU O-lineman who looked like a giant non-human creature of some sort.  Can we play with these guys?

But oh, how our lineman have earned the respect of the fans, coaches, opponents and nation.  Woodson, Little, Lyons, Burton, Locke (the Secret Weapon), Dixon, Johnson, Tamme, et al are awesome but....

Let's hear it for Leger playing hurt, Zipp Duncan (great football name), Eric Scott, Jeremy Jarmon, Durham, Peters, Pryor, Jenkins and teammates.

And just for fun, let's throw in a linebacker corps getting the job done - Micah Johnson. Woodyard and the guy who closed the deal, Braxton Kelly.

While we're at it, a BIG thanks to two sophomore defensive backs - still unknown - who stepped up big time and my favorite of all Trevard Lindley.

These guys have flat gotten the job done and they have my respect.  They deserve some kinda cool name like the no-names or the purple people eaters or something.......they believe and they have no fear.

Can we play with these guys?  YES!  FINALLY!

Florida is going to be very good in a year or two.. well, if Tebo sticks around.  For now, Florida's defense is just not very good.  Sorry GatorPilot..  loss #3 in a row is upon you and losess #4 and #5 for UF are looming.

Guess we'll just add another crushed dream to our wake.

I got to hear the terrific Tom Leach and Jeff Piecoro announce a U of Kentucky football win for the first time ever.

We had 45000 thousand fans that bright and sunny day in Commonwealth.  What struck me was the fact that our fans were still loud, though not as much as this year, even in this SEC cellar dweller game which 99.9 percent of the country could care less about what happened.

Living in W. Virginia as I do I get teased constantly here by WVU maniacs - WVU fans think every other school besides them is a bitter heated rival - all the time.  The fact that they were always playing for conference and even national titles didn't help my cause any either.  

But they did praise me for being a loyal and true U of Kentucky fan and wondered out loud how can I be so supportive of a team out of state that loses in football every year instead of their home state school which was a perennial winner every year.

The reason is that U of Kentucky chose me as a fan rather than the other way around.  I first visited U of Kentucky which was my only visit ever to the UK campus in 1990 with my computer team and was hooked on UK instantly.

Also we 'Cat fans always seem to have a chip on our shoulder and think everybody is against us.  I'm no exception living here in W. Virginia.  I'm the town "Nerd" here, and W. Virginians and even most Kentuckians too love to treat me like that because I'm not in the in-crowd, which really is why I am a 'Cat fan instead of a WVU fan which I technically should be.

My life has been far more indicative of Kentucky Football instead of WVU football.  Unlike WVU Football which now is a favorite and a potential powerhouse school every single year and are favorites to win conference champions my life is like that of an underdog just waiting to bust through the door.

"Busting down the door" finally happened Nov. 6, 2006 when Trevard Lindley made the biggest play of the year to win us the biggest game of the year and possibly our entire football program 24-20 over those Georgia Bull Dawgs, who actually had blown us out big time in the 2 games in their predecessor years.  That's the 1st time we actually "finished" in a key win because everytime before we would always find a way to lose every time.

I credit the football players we have this year and a lesser extent to our coaches for our success.  They believed in themselves when no one, my fellow 'Cat fans, and even myself personally had a shot of doing so.  They always not just "believed" they could do it but "knew" they could do it instead.

We actually had several of our best players out due to injury and even lost the turnover battle to LSU and still managed to win.  While this wasn't quite the 100 percent - it still was at least 95 percent instead - "perfect" game I and most of my fellow 'Cat fans wanted it's still pretty darn close.

I also loved the way our players responded after losing to Steve Spurrier and South Carolina.  Love him or hate him many teams lose to Spurrier because IMHO he is still by far the best Head Coach in Football today.  I wasn't ashamed at sll losing to Spurrier and the Gamecocks because he has beaten teams a lot more talented than us that's for sure.

Anyway we were able to right the ship this time like we have almost every game we've played except for the Gamecocks.

Now if we just had an injury-free lineup - both Raphael Little and Paul Warford are slated to at least miss two games if not more - and play that "perfect game" we 'Cat fans keep mentioning, we can compete with every other darn college football program in the country.

I've never dreamed I'd admit that in my entire lifetime!

GO 'CATS!  WE BELIEVE!

SHOCK THE WORLD ONE MORE TIME AGAINST FLORIDA!