Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: SEC In The Crosshairs Edition

A bomb was dropped on the SEC yesterday by no less than Charles Robinson of Yahoo! sports. Alabama and Tennessee look to be in a very bad place.

Tweet of the Morning:

To maintain consistency, if Calipari is a cheating scumbag b/c Camby took money then it looks like Saban is, too. Can't have it both ways.

— Adam (@G2_Blog) September 12, 2013

Damn skippy.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• The Kentucky-Louisville rivalry 20 years ago.

• Mark Stoops happy with Wednesday practice. Good. Hat tip: John Clay

• An AP football writer says Louisville wins the game 45-17. I wonder if he knows it's a true road game for the Cardinals, and that Kentucky and Louisville are rivals?

• Moral victories 'r' us this year, most likely. The Wildcats do have some things going for them, namely coming off a strong showing against an admittedly weak team, and playing in front of the home crowd. Louisville will have all the pressure on them Saturday, because a poor showing here, even in victory, could derail the hype and damage Teddy Bridgewater's Heisman hopes.

• This is fun:

  Kentucky is a lower level team in the SEC but this is an in-state rivalry game that looks like it has some potential for an upset. Chances are the Cardinals keep on rolling and Bridgewater keeps up his Heisman Trophy candidacy.

  I liked the "potential for an upset" part.

• Teddy Bridgewater is #3 in passing efficiency. Maxwell Smith is #9.

Kentucky basketball

• John Calipari already looking ahead to 2016.

• John Calipari will visit 2015 7-foot center Stephen Zimmerman later this week in Las Vegas.

• It's true that Kentucky has had some ex-players get into trouble lately, but the idea of "life training" as a solution is a little silly. Everybody knows by the time they leave college that beating up your wife, or embezzling money from state and federal governments, or sexual relations with a minor is illegal. "Life training" won't help you there.

  The problem is that people are people and make mistakes. In the process, they make Kentucky look bad. It happens everywhere, and is a fact of life. Do I think changes should be made to the curriculum to allow a kind of "sports major?" Sure, but let's be honest — it isn't as if these guys who did these crimes didn't know they were doing wrong, they did. They just didn't care, or thought they wouldn't get caught.

  No amount of instruction can provide you with a sense of morality, or a determination to do the right thing. That has to come from within.

• A lot of experts are picking Tyler Ulis to Kentucky on Friday.

Other Kentucky sports

• Women's golf starts their season with guns, and putters, blazing.

Links posts

• The Leach Report — Thursday Wildcat Links

College football

• The blowback from the Yahoo! report is already starting. The Clarion-Ledger thinks that Mississippi St. might escape serous trouble.

• Nick Saban reacts rather badly to questions about the Yahoo! report [Hat tip: John Clay]:

• This:

  First we had ESPN showing us, with multiple camera angles and thousands of replays, what happens when an offensive lineman misses a block and how it can create a legend.

  Now we have CBS, late to the party but charging fast, with one camera following one player for an entire game.

  And you people wonder why college athletes have an entitled attitude.

  No, we really don't. I think we figured this out a long time ago. But thanks for the reminder.

College basketball

• Oh, good grief.

• Rush The Court — Morning Five

Other sports news

• For John Wall, every game counts, even exhibitions like Monday's. With an $80 million contract, you bet.

• This is actually pretty good, and gets a lot of things right, but I don't agree with this:

  Regardless of what happens, the juncture we appear to be at marks an incredible transition in public perception. People, in general, are officially fed up with the current system. Stories like the allegations against Johnny Manziel are not treated as a player breaking the rules. It is held up as an indictment of a system gone haywire. The possible improprieties at Oklahoma State are seen as proof in favor of fewer rules not enforcing the current ones. The academic issues raised in the Wednesday article point to the fallacy and utter joke the concept of the student-athlete has become in major athletic programs. In essence the response to new accusations of misconduct is not that it's bad someone broke the rules but how awful it is the stupid rules are even there at all. You know an organization has reached its twilight when people begin to openly cheer for it to fail at the very purpose it exists to fulfill.

  Mainly, I think the problem is threefold: One, the SI investigation is basically tabloid journalism at it's finest, and people recognize that. They also recognize that it's been too long to matter.

  Two, the SEC scandal is, and will continue to produce outrage as soon as the NCAA gets involved, particularly in the case of Alabama. It's just begun, and it has real reporting behind it, not fraudulent "McJournalism."

  Three, the UNC scandal was a big deal because they hold themselves up as a paragon of academic virtue, and then get caught up in the kind of academic fraud you might expect at Florida St. or Auburn. When you put yourself on a pedestal, you can't blame people for trying to knock you off.

  I'm looking at you, Duke. Your good luck won't last forever.