Will The REAL Wildcats Please Stand Up?

Everybody knows that in a horror movie, when the music starts building, and the camera creeps into a dark corner, and the lights dim, either the girl in the scene is going to get cut in two by a random act of violence, or the director is playing you for a goof and the scene was contrived just to set you up.

Cue the 2011 Kentucky Wildcats Football Team.

The last two weeks have been frustrating, elating, psychotic and jubilant. And that's just in my living room watching the game on TV. I cannot imagine what the sidelines would have been like. Joker Phillips and his band of merry kittens have shown that they can play without NFL record holder Randall Cobb. But only in flashes, and only against mediocre competition. So what does that mean for this week's Governor's Cup battle? Well, if you just look at the box scores for both the Cats and for the Louisville Cardinals, you would think, OK, Cats have the edge on paper and on the field. But that only works if Morgan Newton the Gunslinger shows up, ready to throw and run his way to a 3-0 start for the Cats this year. Oh yeah, he is also going to need his receiving corps to show up ready to catch the ball.

In essence, the Cats have relied on a stingy but also erratic defense that while not allowing a lot of points, has allowed a few big plays to slip by. Nothing that could hurt them drastically, and in their defense, they have been playing with their backs to the wall quite a bit due to some really lousy play by the offense at times.

What does this mean? It means the Cats have been their own worst enemy at times. It means that guys like Matt Roark better learn to get their hands on the ball and keep them there when Morgan Newton cuts loose, because he has his own dragons to slay. Newton is trying to work his way into a comfort zone that up until now has only existed for a scant few moments in the second half of the second game of the season.

Now before you go claiming I am preaching gloom and doom, I am not writing the Cats off, although I still hold by my preseason thoughts that 6-6 will be an accomplishment for this team. But consistency is going to be necessary for these Cats to hold serve against the much better competition they will face for the rest of the year. Yes, Louisville look like the breaking up of a hard winter right now, and they may very well fall to the Cats for the (I cant remember back that far) year in a row. But hear me on this. The road that leads through the SEC is not only rough and rocky, but the pot holes are big enough to swallow cars (or erratic QB's and receivers) and that tow truck the defense is driving only has so much gas in it. So, Wildcats, it is time to start looking at where you are going, because you might want to think about avoiding what could be some really costly repairs.