Kentucky Football: Why Kentucky Will Win the 2012 Governor's Cup

At this moment, Kentucky is a 13.5 point underdog to the Louisville Cardinals in Sunday's Governor's Cup game, which is held in Louisville this year. This is the first of a 2-part article about the game and who will win or lose. The first part, since this is, in fact, a Kentucky site, will be all about why UK will win Sunday. The second part, as you would expect, will be about why Kentucky will lose.

Kentucky will win the 2012 Governor's Cup Game because:

• Louisville will take Kentucky lightly
  Analysts are predicting a Louisville win by double digits, and the Las Vegas line is 13.5 points. Meanwhile, most analysts predict Kentucky will be lucky to win more than 3 games this year. If that doesn't make a team overconfident, nothing can.
• Louisville's ranking of 25 is suspect at best
  Louisville's current lofty ranking appears to be based on a 7-5 regular-season record last year, and seems indifferent to their loss to N.C. State Wolfpack in the Belk Bowl. The Cardinals wound up tied for the Big East championship with West Virginia and Cincinnati, and in the process, the Cardinals lost to Florida International at home lost to Marshall Thundering Herd at home and beat exactly 2 FBS teams with a winning record by a combined total of 5 points. Neither of those teams is ranked this year, and only one them was ranked in the top 25 last year - West Virginia.

• Louisville was only a marginally better offensive team than Kentucky last year, and they played n a much weaker conference
  Louisville's scoring offense was ranked 98th among all Division I teams last year, and this was against a conference that went 3-2 against Conference USA, 2-3 against the SEC and 0-1 vs. the Sun Belt.
  
  Kentucky was even worse at 117, but assuming the same level of improvement on both squads, this year figures to be more even. Kentucky rushed for 35 yards last year against Louisville, but they look to be much better this year with the addition of some stud running backs.
• Kentucky has a good record against Louisville on the road
  The Wildcats are 6-3 versus Louisville in the Cardinals' home stadium, including the last 2 in a row.
• Louisville lost their leading returning receiver, Michaelee Harris, to injury in August
  That's part of football, but Louisville's starting receivers caught a total of 26 balls last year.
• Joker Phillips has a shrine to Jobu in his office
  It is also my understanding that Phillips spiked some of Charlie Strong's coffee with some of Jobu's rum. As we all know, it is very bad to drink Jobu's rum. Very bad.
• Kentucky is an SEC team
  Well all know that even a bad SEC team is a threat to beat almost any Big East team not named West Virginia.
• Kentucky's coaching staff is rumored to have found the One Ring on a recruiting trip to Florida
  Nobody at UK will confirm this, but somebody told me Phillips was heart to have muttered, "Azh nazg thrakatulûk..." the other day. On the other hand, he just might have been trying to pronounce Jack Gruenschlaeger's name.
• Louisville will have so many more fans there to disappoint
  The universe has a funny way of smacking around a cocky, arrogant fan base, and Louisville fans have been way too cocky and arrogant lately. Their bad karma account is overdrawn.
• André Woodson will be suiting up in Maxwell Smith's place, and starting at QB
  Don't tell anybody, but there's also a rumor Randall Cobb will be sneaking in the game to return punts.
  
• Kentucky has had excellent special teams play in the pre-season
  Louisville, on the other hand, has struggled.on special teams in the early season.
• Kentucky just deserves it more
  After last season, the football gods owe us one.

That's what I have. Hopefully, you can think of a few more reasons.