Alabama at Kentucky in the Rear-View Mirror

In the link, Lones said confidence took a big jump after making the first 49-yard field goal. Confidence isn’t something that just happens. It has to be embraced. Sort of like embracing the hate. And we all know about that !

Randall Cobb had this to say about his fumble

He’s frustrated. Cobb says after the fumble recovered for a touchdown at the end of the first half, he could see that not everyone had the same fight as him.

“It was a little bit of both sides. You had some guys that were like ‘I can’t believe this just happened’ and other guys saying ‘O.K., were still in this game, we can win this game.’ I think the attitude is one of the biggest things that needs to be changed on this team.”

Yes attitude. I really enjoy football, but I don’t play it obviously. I cannot help the x’s and o’s. It doesn’t matter how many times I play tic-tac-toe…LOL… it isn’t going to make the game be better executed. My contribution for a win? Supporting our team. They do need it after all. It will help their attitude.

In case you think that they should win week after week, game after game with no losses, let me ask you this. Are you giving your best shot at being a confidence booster for the team? Most players with heart do it for the fans. Randall also had this to say and I hope you think about it, if only a little…

“Anytime you lose fans, that’s your base. That’s your backbone to a team. If you don’t have the fan support then it’s not even like you’re playing at home. It’s like you’re playing at a neutral site if you don’t have the fan support. We had them in the game for a little bit and after awhile, our fans gave up on us. At that point, we need to make plays to get our fans back into the game. I can’t blame the fans cause they’re not the ones playing, we are.”

Congrats to Lones on his record…..Way to go !!
:-)

It has been obvious watching the Cats the past two weeks that Florida and Alabama are all kinds of bigger, faster and stronger than us. In a way, we are a lot better than we were a few years ago but those two schools still have a huge advantage in overall talent that is very difficult to overcome. You have to play a perfect game and get some breaks to win on the football field when the talent gap is as large as it was the past two weeks. We have not played even close to perfect and yet we were still in this one until the fumble by Locke at the end of the second quarter. If that doesn’t happen, or Johnson tackles the Alabama running back for a safety, could have been a different game.

Either way, to believe at season’s start that we might win one of these past two games was wishful thinking. Florida and Alabama are just too good. The next two games however, are winnable. It’s going to take a great game plan and excellent play. And the fact that we are on the road may actually work in our favor. It’s not likely that we can win both, but I think we can steal one of them and that would make a huge difference down the road.

So, Rich and company, get your boys focused. You can win these next 2 games.

The Cats need to play all four quarters. They did great in the running game but in the passing, well, they need help. The quarterback is still getting rattled at times but other than the first interception, which was VERY bad decison to throw across his body into a group of five Alabama backers, he didn’t play that bad. I saw drops from kids that had been lauded as the best we have. It happens, but you aren’t going to win doing that against a team like Alabama. The star of the game was the UK punter. Two great kicks that put them inside the 10 to start with.
The tackling was better.
The better team won, which happens 99% of the time.
The next two games will define the season. Neither game should be a spread of over 10 points. The problem is we’re playing away from home. BUT didn’t we play Bama tough last year on the road?
The running game looks like its going to have to be a major part of our offense. Speedier defensive backs in the SEC is going to take a toll on the passing game.
Over all, the Cats played better than I thought they would.
Now is the time to show if this year is going to be ‘the year’ or do we wait again for ‘next year’.

This year is one we can’t afford to throw away, especially for Mike hartline. I feel for the guy, but he is not the answer at QB, and is not going to be. Simple as that. He has two, maybe three more games to START, and the freshman Newton needs to get at least a quarter or more of action in each of those. By the series. If we want any chance at bowl #4 in a row. Not trying to be mean, just honestly realistic. Hartline doesn’t have the arm, nor the nerve for SEC QB. He zeroes in immediately, and I couldn’t agree more that there was only one real good throw in that whole game. The drops were mostly all from very poor throws. His dance at the LINE OF SCRIMMAGE with all the audibles is about 75% of the lines problems. You get down to the wire on time on every play and people get jumpy. I love Brooks, but he needs to put the whole brain trust together and make the decision that inexperienced talent can and will get you farther then experienced lack thereof. This is the most important year in the resurrection of UK football. We can’t afford to can this year just to not hurt Mike’s feelings? he’s a man and men tough things out. Wish it could be otherwise, but it’s not a perfect world. Fidler ain’t getting to play? Nobodies worried about his feelings? We have far too many teams to play that are better then most any of us thought they were. We don’t have as much room to play it looks like.

“Oh, so the punt fake and shot at the end zone was in response to UK trying to save time to run another series? Really? With an 18 point lead? Please.”

I know that, as a Kentucky fan, it may be that you understand football as well as I understand cricket, but yes, the idea is that we lay down, you lay down. If we start to lay down and you start calling timeouts, we’re not going to just lay down and willingly give you the ball back with the same score.

Other than Meyer, Stoops, etc.-types who relish running it up, there’s a way for both teams to acknowledge that the game is over. If the losing team is on defense at that point, their way to do so is to refrain from calling timeouts and let the game actually end. But you can’t have it both ways, expecting to extend the game while the other team lies down.

“The thing about quarterback is, you have four or five bad plays and you played terrible,” Phillips said. “For the most part, he played good. But it’s those four or five plays your quarterback is judged on.”

That’s just plain scary that a coach takes this position. I guess Woodson won’t be kept awake at night worrying his throws without an interception record won’t be broken while Brooks/Phillips are in charge. This mindset from the coaching staff is totally unacceptable. If you accept mediocrity as the end goal that’s where you’ll peak.

Who was coaching at Kentucky when he set that record?

At some point, you’d think he stop making mistakes that a high school freshman makes, but alas, he doesn’t. The first interception was absolutely inexcusable. You never, ever, throw across your body, against your momentum, to the middle of the field. That is QB 101.

was when some of the basketball team came out on the field with Coach Cal. The crowd went wild! After that any time something negative happened on the field (umm PLENTY) I would look at my friend and say, “Bring out the basketball team!” We would crack up picturing the team running out on the field every few minutes to cheer up our crowd and give us something to cheer about! lol. ;)

The best teams are behind us. That’s good.
No game on the schedule should we not be ‘in’. We’ve played three games at home and one at a neutral site. Playing at Auburn and South Carolina isn’t going to make it easier.
Its the conference we’re in. Time to show up and play.

• This team has shown flashes of being a good to very good football team.

• ’Bama was the better team, even if we played our best

• And thus the rub – if we play to our abilities, but lose, I can be okay. The problem is that this team is NOT playing to its potential. I’m not talking some cheesey-come-out-of-nowhere-and-win-it-all potential, I just mean play within yourself and your talents. We cannot seem to do that with any consistency.

• My concern isn’t with our talent, it’s with this team making the SAME mistakes over and over. Penalties and turnovers are killing us. Take away the first personal foul and one Hartline INT, and this might have been a ball game, even with the lucky Locke fumble.

• Thus, it comes down to coaching. I think we have talent, and ability, and can run with most teams in the nation, but if the coaches can’t get this team to stop making boneheaded mistakes, we will continue to lose.

My concern isn’t with our talent, it’s with this team making the SAME mistakes over and over. Penalties and turnovers are killing us. Take away the first personal foul and one Hartline INT, and this might have been a ball game, even with the lucky Locke fumble.

… is what is making me unhappy. Penalties and stupid turnovers. I can live with forced fumbles, those are just good D, but lobbed-up interceptions are not acceptable.

after the closed practices has he been asked about getting a little game experience for the #2 and #3 quarterbacks? I know it’s hard to throw them in the game against the best teams in the division/conference/country but they need to get in the game somewhere.

In my dreams I’d also like to see Cobb in the Wildcat for several plays in succession. It’s a lot to ask of him to occassionally run that formation without being able to get into a rhythm; but, if anybody could do it, he could.

McFadden, I believe was a guarterback in high school. When he went into the wildcat formation with the other running back, his name excapes me, it was two running back, one with the ablitiy to be a passer and the possiblity of the option or an end around.
I’m not at practices, nor do I think any coach in his right mind,, would not put his best athletes on the field at the postions they would most benefit the offense.
It seems the potential to do more thinks would be with Cobb in the shotgun. But I’m not making the choices.
Hartlne’’s mistakes are more visible to all of us because the play starts eith him. We don’t know who called the play, changed it at the sideline, etc. The one glowing mistake was the pass across his body for the first interception.
Any one know if the receivers have blow the routes? Nope. Give the kid a break. For every dropped ball, it goes against his completion total. Wrong route, against Hartlline. He’s not the best in the SEC but apparently, acoording to the coaches is the best we got.

weasel, unbelievable!
With upteen sites on this board to discuss basketball, we got it here. Just pickin’ on ya.
BUT I think it might show the overall feelings for UK football when it comes to something, anything, being posted about Cal’s Cats.
You guys go nuts about basketball and although I have basketball tickets I try to be a football fan. Let’s hope Cal doesn’t get a toothache or some other life threating problem or we may have to call off homecoming.