Kentucky Wildcats Saturday Quickies: Mark Stoops Edition

Mark Stoops has been knocking the proverbial ball out of the park lately, drawing huge crowds in Louisville and for his Women's Football Clinic, and making a classic and hilarious response to ESPN's Colin Cowherd after Cowherd criticized him.

Tweets of the Morning:

Found a story from 2011 where Joker Phillips said: "We've been a place that has had to grow and project defensive linemen." Not anymore.

— Jen Smith (@jenheraldleader) July 27, 2013

Phillips also said in story: "It seems like all the great defensive linemen migrate to the same places." Wonder if UK is that place now.

— Jen Smith (@jenheraldleader) July 27, 2013

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky's Avery Williamson nominated for the Allstate Good Works Team. Congrats!
• The UK 2013 Football Media Guide is now available. Get it here. Lotsa good info on the coaching and support staff. I download mine every year. [Hank]

• There are so many things I disagree with here (other than the facts), I don't even know where to begin. [hank]

  [Glenn] I am in complete agreement with Hank. Petrino is not going to be taking many recruits from an SEC and ACC school to Conference USA. That's just not rational — it doesn't happen an it won't. Petrio is a good recruiter, but he's no Nick Saban. He's a much better coach than recruiter.

  I'd be more worried about him coaching up a bunch of 2-stars and 3-stars than recruiting 4-stars to Western.

• Read about Kentucky's under the radar players at Varsity Preps. Also some info on UK recruits. [Hank]

• Meet UK recruit WR Kadeem Goulbourne. Better make up your mind or be left behind. [Hank]

  [Glenn] Said Kentucky, never. Until now.

• Oh Please! Gimmee a break. [Hank].

  [Glenn] Indeed. The classification of the good doctor is species: Human. Subspecies: Douchebag.

• Flippin' Flippin' Flippin' the night away. And so it begins. It could happen to us. We need to hold on tighter... [Hank]

• ...which brings me to this music video of the day [Hank]

• Alabama blog talks about Kentucky. It's pretty much what you'd expect, except it's not as condescending as is often the case with other SEC blogs.

• Louisville chapter of the UK Alumni Association is definitely amped about the prospects of Kentucky football, and taking the "U of L" out of the news in the River City:

  The moment the River City chapter of the BBN realized Stoops and his current staff were, in fact, not messing around was last January when it marched into Trinity High School and convinced star defensive end Jason Hatcher to renounce his Southern Cal commitment and sign instead with UK.

  "You have to have some substance, and that's why we signed Jason Hatcher," Stoops told the crowd Friday. "Not because of the way we carried ourselves in that building, but because of the substance that would go behind it.

  More here from Kyle Tucker.

• Matt Elam gets a Tennessee offer. That'll make it that much sweeter when he picks UK (hope!).

• Three UK freshmen, all on defense, who may get to play immediately.
• Mark Stoops is not a silver-tongued devil. But he is getting it done, because his passion and confidence is coming through.
• The Women's Football Clinc at UK draws a crowd of over 500. Excitment? I'd say yes.
• Neal Brown explains how Kentucky will evaluate three quarterbacks at the same time. I like that Mark Stoops is giving Brown a lot of freedom to innovate.
• Absolutely my favorite "up yours!" response of all time: Colin Cowherd of ESPN took a shot at Mark Stoops for sending large numbers of letters to recruits, and Stoops sent Cowherd 50 letters from UK. Hilarious! Your move, Colin.

Kentucky basketball

• Some Tyus Jones video via Rob Dauster at NBC Sports:

  I like Jones, but I prefer Emmanuel Mudiay. He's bigger, stronger, more physical and more athletic. Here's a little of him:

• Andy Glockner at SI.com has more on Mudiay, as well as some other UK recruits, like Stanley Johnson.

• The Big Lead picks five UK players among the top fifty in the nation.
• I'm pretty happy we're not traveling to Georgia this basketball season. They've been tough on us in Stegeman Colosseum.

Other UK sports

• Update from Ethiopia from UK athletes on a service trip there.

Links posts

• John Clay's Big Blue Links
• John Clay's SEC Links
• Saturday Morning Links from KSR
• The Leach Report &emdash; Saturday Morning Links

College football

• Cowbells have been aprroved for Mississippi State's opener against Houston. While I think the racket would annoy me, I'm kind of glad to see this tradition continued, at least until it annoys me sufficiently.
• Nick Saban to Texas! Said nobody, ever. Well, maybe one guy, but I think it has a lot more to do with generating traffic than to posit a realistic scenario.
• South Carolina's greatest SEC disaster.
• And The Valley Shook talks about LSU's greatest SEC disaster.

College basketball

• College basketball coaches facing likely decisive seasons.
• Gonzaga fans on Kyle Wiltjer.
• Andy Katz says Louisville should be considered for pre-season #1. Considered, yes, but then discarded as unworthy. Hat tip: Aaron's blog
• After having been declared ineligible by the NCAA a week or two ago, two players from Prime Prep, the same school as Emmanuel Mudiay is attending, have seen that ruling reversed.

Other sports news

• John Wall and John Calipari talk DeMarcus Cousins on Wall's blog. I really hope the Big Cuz can reach his potential. He really is one of my favorite players at UK in the Calipari era.
• Whoa! Hard to believe this guy on the motorcylce is fine.
• The University of Montana is in trouble with the NCAA, and some games were vacated.
• Bright Side of the Sun has a long post about Eric Bledsoe.