But how does UK being a basketball school fit in?

Tebow didnt have anything to do with our offense coming out and grabbing our ankles 4 the first quarter,He is awesome though,Kentucky will never beat Fla til they get thismental block out of the way,hell we cant even beat south carolina,for all the good Brooks and co. have done and they have done alot weve got to get over this B.S. that we cant play with these teams,arent we tired of saying wait till BBall season i know i am

It seems that is going to be the ‘company line’.
We had a pretty good basketball program through out the years no matter who ever the athletic director has been.
So why not go get an business school dean to lead the athletic department? With the money coming in from the TV and other contracts the SEC have developed it would make more sense.
OH, I forgot Barnhart announced his goal of 15 championships in seven years on December 9th, 2008. To date we have one, a conference championship in the Great American Rifle Conference. Six years and two months to go so watch out, there’s going to be a bundle of them coming in soon. Cal better win at least the conference and the conference tournament every year.
But what does that lead us back to. We’re still a basketball school.
We are wealthy as an athletic program. Not many schools could go out and pay 4 million for a basketball coach knowing they may be out another 6 million for a “didn’t fit”.
The majority wouldn’t have it any other way.

This has been our response to football problems for the last 50 years. We are a superior basketball program, and that should be nothing more to this problem than part of the solution.

The University of Kentucky is a 7-Time National Championship program. We have athletic facilities that most schools would die for. We have athletic boosters that love this University. Do our fans love basketball….more than life itself. Would our fans love basketball if we were NOT a 7-Time National Champ Not even for a New York Minute.

Success breeds fans…..ask the Dallas Cowboys….ask the Boston Celtics….LA Lakers…..New York Yankees….the incredible fanbases those teams have come from their decades of success. Those are pro teams you say…..not college….so we can throw out Ohio State…..Duke….USC (the one out there in California)….Florida( true it has only been 10 years, but that is a MAJOR start)….Success in anything will bring fan support and ultimately financial support.

We don’t get the 4 & 5 star athletes….Just who’s fault is that …..Well, if we had more success, then we would get them…..How do we get them????……ask Les Miles…..and Nick Saban……ask John Calipari…..ask Pete Carroll…..

The point to all of this is, the time for excuses is long gone….that ship has sailed….

The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result……The definition of Gross Stupidity is expecting to be rewarded for it.

It is time we met these problems head on…..if Coach Brooks can solve them, fine. He certainly has exceeded expectations to this point for at least the past three years. can he get us to the next level? That remains to be seen, but if not, then we move on. If Joker Phillips is the answer, he sure as all that’s holy didnt show it Saturday, but it is florida, so he gets a what, three time pass?…..how many years has it been now since we could compete with these guys?

We make excuse after excuse in support of our programs when they don’t perform. But let’s be honest here….using your own analogy, would we tolerate this kind of performance from our basketball program? Not just no, but…..hell no……because we have higher expectations. We DEMAND that the basketball program perform. Let’s stop finding ways to placate ourselves about who we can beat and who we cant, and let’s start finding ways to get this program to the next level…..do we want perfection?….well an honest answer is yes, because if we don’t want to win, then why bother suiting up?….

I mean, c’mon, if we dont want to win at the SEC level, then let’s just not field a team, we can forget about having to recruit football players and throw all our money at the basketball program, period. No excuses. We can pull out of the SEC, become an independent in basketball and play whomever we like.

I am tired of the excuses….the analogies…..the “let’s be patient” approaches….the “if we only had” seasons……..it is time to either step up, or step down.

This is not about what happened Saturday with one glaring exception……Anyone can beat anyone on any given Saturday…..but they have to show up to do it…….and we didnt even show up. You want mediocrity???…..fine go see a 1-star chick flick with an aging, but lovable guy playing the lead……I want a Woody Hayes/Bear Bryant/Bobby Bowden hybrid walking the sidelines, coaching Wolverine/The Hulk/Buford Pusser as he pounds on the competition…..he won’t ALWAYS win….but he will make me never want to miss a game…..

You say that because UK fans focus most of their attention on basketball over football, so that the

the football discussion on Kentucky fan sites can sometimes be a little hyperbolic or even occasionally incoherent. It usually boils down to criticizing the coaching and the quarterback, or the punter, or whoever was the major proximate cause of the catastrophic play that cost us the game.

This is true of basketball too. How many times, do we end up blaming the coach (Gillispie, Smith), the “quarterback of the hardwood”—the point guard—(porter, Saul Smith), or the player that misses two free throws late when down only one?

And on the other side, football powerhouses tend to blame A) the coaching, B) the quaterback, C) the athlete with the particularly costly blunder or D) the officials. Notre Dame fans are calling for the scalp of Charlie Weis. Jim Tressel is taking heat in Ohio St. as is Bob Stoops in Norman “for not winning the big one.” Think LSU and Michigan fans weren’t mad as hell at quaterbacks last year?

As knowledgeable as Kentucky fans are about basketball, fans of the above schools are just as knowledgeable about football. Just as fans from traditional football schools make criticisms of head coach and quarterback because they are the highest profiles/easiest targets, so too we denigrate Hartline and Brooks.

Incoherence, hyperbole and blaming the coach or signature player aren’t consequences of being basketball myopic, they’re consequences of being fans.

Matt wrote one of his better posts in some time today on the topic of fan expectations. I’ve said before that there are inherent challenges in making UK football a top 10 program that go beyond Coach Brooks and Coach Phillips. I don’t expect most people to accept his reasoning, but it is the cold hard truth of college football in these times.

http://kentuckysportsradio.com/?p=29654

I think Kentucky fans, mostly made up of part-time and half-hearted football fans

Speak for yourself on that one Tru.

I listened to part of the Rich Brooks call-in-show yesterday. A caller questioned Brooks on why seven years ago when he took over the program, UK was in the cellar of the SEC, and that is where UK remains today. When, then, can UK expect to compete regularly in the SEC?

As you might imagine, this provoked an angry (somewhat surprised too) response and in typical Brooksian fashion, he rattled off his three straight bowls wins and victories over Louisville in defense. If the caller wanted “to go back to where this program was seven years ago, then go ahead,” Brooks said.

I think, however, the caller had a fair question. Too many fans believe UK can “never” compete in the SEC East. That, to use a Brookism, is bullshit. While Brooks deserves adulation for his efforts to restore the program from the horrors of probation, he must play teams like Florida more competitively, beat Vanderbilt consistently, split games with programs like South Carolina and be competitive against the superstars. Getting outscored 106-12 in the past two seasons by Florida shouldn’t pass. Brooks acknowledged this and said we’ll see marked improvement against Alabama. If not he warned, check the ER. (not sure what he meant by that, but it sounded forceful)

The football team lost to number 1 Florida.
…They didn’t lose to Gardner Webb’s football team

Along with just about everyone else, I am appreciative of the job Brooks/Joker have done over the past few years. But I think it is also a reasonable conclusion to draw that this regime has peaked and will never get us over the proverbial hump (not to Nat’l Championship status, more to better-than-Carolina status). Why? Because of the system.

To borrow one of Tru’s comparisons, UK is trying to “out Alabama” Alabama. We have a fairly conventional offense and defense. Ultimately, the only way that can win is if you have better athletes (physical and/or mental). We don’t. And given the recruiting base issues, etc., we aren’t likely to anytime soon.

So how do we win? We win by playing a different game. As in baseball, where a moneyball or similar philosophy has allowed the A’s, Marlins, and Rays of the world to be occassionally competitive, UK needs to recognize that it can’t outspend or outrecruit its versions of the Yankees and Red Sox.

The only way UK can be competitive in the SEC is to develop some sort of gimmick – think the spread option, triple option, (DDMO?) etc. These were/are all offensive philosophies that allow non-traditional teams to be competitive. For UK to grab the brass ring, we must find the next innovation. Is this coaching staff capable of doing that? No, I don’t think so.

Thus, for UK to be competitive, it must swing for the fences with something different. What this means is that we may also have seasons where we win 0 or 1 games. We may pick the wrong gimmick/innovator, and it can be a disaster. Is that preferrable to the consisten mediocrity we have (and that Brooks/Joker is clearly good enough to deliver)? That’s the decision we have to make.

…is it basketball season yet?

does this make Terrence cody Mothra?

and our running back corps the Three Headed Monster?

also we’re def talking old Japanese movie Godzilla and not that horrid american version right?

I love a good giant monster flick, on top of a good zombie flick (ZOMBIELAND THIS FRIDAY!!!)

What if UK were willing to drop Calipari money on a football coach – a big established name. (I know the likelihood, I’m just creating a scenerio.) In essence that would then help recruiting as players would want to come to play for said coach and he could use the whole, “Come be the beginning of Kentucky football” approach to sell it.

There just HAS to be some way to get players to want to play at Kentucky. I am a true believer that having a coach that people want to play for – that is well known for producing big results – is a good a starting place as any.

However, I just don’t get why all the doom and gloom after we lost to Florida? Yes, I hate it. Yes, we looked scared, unprepared, and like lesser men. Yes, the streak (and against UT and OBC) is ridiculous.

Still, in three games, we won the two we expected to win, and lost the one we expected to lose. We have yet to lose a game that we either should win or should compete closely in terms of talent and ability.

Long season left here, guys. A loss to potentially the best college football team to ever play the game is not doomsday. We didn’t lose to Gardner-Webb.

I vote for holding back some of these coaching and other criticisms until after South Carolina, Tennessee, and Auburn.

It just won’t, for all the reasons stated here and elsewhere. I’ve been telling people that for years. There are too many barriers to overcome, and all of the believing and hoping won’t make them go away. Every straw I’ve seen pulled from the “WE CAN DO IT” crowd doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

However, It isn’t unreasonable to expect to field a respectable team every year and a very good team that can make waves in the SEC every 3-5 years. And for the most part that is where we are now. Mark Story had a nice line in his article yesterday when he noted that “since the 2006 blowout loss to LSU in Baton Rouge, UK has had a chance to win in the second half of all 35 games it has played except for two — Florida in 2008 and Florida in 2009.”

That’s some real progress, and I think it can get better, but not tremendously better. Instead of being a bottom-feeder SEC program, I think we can be a middle of the road SEC program. But top tier? It’s just not going to happen.

Steve Spurrier is in his fifth year at South Carolina and yet a coach known for offensive fireworks has yet to find a way to manufacture a competent offense in those 5 years. He has as many bowl appearances and two fewer bowl wins than Kentucky has had in those same 5 years. Also, who was coaching South Carolina before that? Lou Holtz, another big name with a national championship under his belt. His record at South Carolina: 0-11, 8-4, 9-3, 5-7, 5-7, and 6-5.

Hire a big name coach? Give me a break.

The SI article on recruiting says it all. I don’t know how anyone can read that and come away encouraged in any way with Kentucky’s chances of luring in the type of talent needed to be a top football program.

I’m happy with the direction of the program and I think it can and will get better, but we’re probably never going to be on the same level as the Floridas and Alabamas of the world.

Florida is good, but I’m not even sure they’re the best team in the nation, much less ever. And no, Brooks didn’t take us from doomsday to the promised land. He took over a team that went 7-5 and returned a senior qb and led them to what, a three win season the next year? Outside of LSU and Georgia, we haven’t really beat anybody except cupcakes and a Clemson team that was obviously unmotivated in the music city bowl a few years ago. In my opinion, we haven’t played up to our talent since beating LSU.
I mean for goodness sakes, even Tennessee hung in the game with Florida at Florida. We looked like an OVC school and we should have lost to Louisville too. (Obviously I’m not a Brooks fan, never have been. My man Morris got disrespected by Evilhart.)

I’m an Alabama fan so take it for what it’s worth but I think Kentucky can be better. You have a great university with great fan support, you have very good facilities and you play in the best football conference in the land. Kentucky has all the potential it believes it has. You get blown out by Florida and everyone just seems to accept it as an inevitability, but let UK get blown out by Florida in basketball and those same fans are breathing fire in indignation. It’s all about; how much does it mean to you? Like St Nick (Saban) says “if it means something to ya’ you can’t stand still.” I really like CRB alot, but it doesn’t matter what I think, if YOU don’t believe he’s going to take you where you WANT – not where you feel you deserve – to be, then you have to turn up the heat a little. Complacency is the mortal enemy of success.

I really like UK, except for this Saturday of course. RTR!

One thing is keeping the top football players in the state. Right now Louisville is down. We are supposedly riding a wave of improvement. Why can’t we keep the best in Kentucky at home?
They are going to listen to a man who has proven he’s a winner and the creditals to show he isn’t going to settle with being tickled to death by going six and six and to get to a minor bowl. We don’t have the history to impress a young man when he comes on the campus. We can’t show them trophies from major bowls and tell about all the all americans that have worn the Kentucky jerseys.
In basketball, we can do all that and more.
Until we get someone who is know across the country to all football programs, not just the local area we won’t get the quality players other schools get. Bring in some coach from a school that is know for his passing game, or developing top notch defenses and maybe we can get some of the athletes. from home and in other states who want to play for him. Forget loyalities to schools. Especially if its not a school who is barely making it to minor bowls.

And I don’t see the record getting any better. As to Ontherocks comment, I’m not overreacting to one bad loss, I’m reacting to weeks of futility. Hey, anyone can schedule four cupcakes a year and beat the bottom of the SEC twice to get bowl eligible, but what’s the point? If that’s good enough, then let’s just cancel the program and ready for basketball. Woodson’s senior year we had a realistic shot at 10-2 and ended up barely beating a depleted FSU team in the music city bowl. We don’t need Urban Meyer right now, we need a coach that will really lay a frame for what we could someday be. I don’t think recruits are jumping at the bit to play for a team that was embarrassed by Florida and barely beat a horrible Louisville team.

we all loathed when it showed “Kentucky’s Shame” on the cover give us another reason not to try to win football games……that poster from Bama had it right and deep down in those little places in our souls we all dont want anyone to see, we all know it.

We have accepted defeat and decided how we can make it manageable, or even “politically correct”. What complete apathy. Tru, you have a military background and a good sense of history, where would we have been if we allowed Japan or Germany to just have their way?? Korea and Vietnam sit well with you??

When did it become ok to just say, well, we can’t do any better because this magazine says so, or that guy says it can’t be done??

When are people going to wake up and realize this is about a choice?….we chose basketball lo so many years ago, and now, when we have the momentum, we choose it again as fans and say, well…..we did the best we could…..makes me sick to even hear it….

I have never heard so many people make excuses for something that they hold so dear….If this was one of your kids would you accept it if the school they attended told you that they had really good reading instructors, but their math teachers werent that hot??
Kentucky’s fans are like no others, we know that……no one can tell me that the same passion that drives the basketball program cannot be infused into this football program.

I said it earlier and I will say it again….Pitino did hit one nail right on the head….success is a choice……I guess we just chose something else….I am not sure what I would call it.

If you throw away your passion for what you love you will eventually cease to care about it, and that is what we have here. It’s like being in a marriage of convenience and saying the sex is “ok”….doesnt make any damn sense……

I had no intention of coming off as condescending, I was being sincere. After reading my post again I can see how someone may perceive it as a slight. But to believe that, however, requires you to also believe that it comes from a position of ridicule. If I appeared to be coming form that position than I apologize.

I prefaced my comment by saying I’m an Alabama fan, implying that I’m making my analysis from a distance and am not familiar with all the minutia. I was merely speaking, granted from the outside looking in, to the prevailing idea that Kentucky can only be a basketball school. I don’t see it that way, just as I don’t think UA has to be just a football school, but I may be wrong. It may not be a simple matter of desire, but “want to” and “belief” are defiantly parts of the equation. UA has this problem with basketball and UK has it with football.

JMO

since UK is a doormat university when it comes to football,what is the answer?Name a Coach and a PRICE that would deliver a National Championship?

in the Florida game. When your not confident you lose focus. The coaching staff should encourage the kids instead of talking about how good the other teams in the SEC are and falling back on “we’re a basketball school” excuse. How bout a little pride. They need to come out with a chip on their sholder instead of admiting defeat before the game even begins. They’ve got the fans behind them, all they need is to believe they can be winners also. I saw waaaay too many missed tackles in the Florida game. Like they knew the guy was going to get around. I’m sure the staff is doing what they can to get the team fired up but it didn’t show on the field last weekend. I just hope to see some attitude and excitement from the blue this weekend. At least calm down enough to EXECUTE.. Serioulsy though, a little confidence goes a long way. With confidence comes poise and focus, two things that recduce the amount of mistakes. Thats got to come from the leaders on the UK team and staff and just like the flu, confidence is contagious.

Who told you they wouldn’t come to Kentucky?
You seem to be awfully certain it wouldn’t happen, so you must have first hand information the rest of us don’t.