Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Josh Clemons Edition

Yesterday, Josh Clemons, the much-injured running back for Kentucky, received a nomination for the Orange Bowl Courage award. Here’s the skinny on that honor:

The Courage Award was first presented by the FWAA in 2002. A select group of writers from the FWAA vote on the winner each year. The requirements for nomination include displaying courage on or off the field, including overcoming an injury or physical handicap, preventing a disaster or living through hardship. The winner of the award will be included in festivities during Orange Bowl week and receive his trophy at an on-field presentation.

I’d say Josh meets this definition in spades. He has been very courageous and lived with a lot of misfortune when it comes to football. We wish him all the best this season. His fortitude and perseverance are an inspiration to us all.

Tweet of the Morning

The differences in how Will Muschamp & Mark Stoops have handled similar situations this week is telling to me. 1/2

— Dan Rieffer (@drieffer) October 9, 2014

Hot name, on the rise coach makes unscheduled appearance to address situation. Hot seat coach cancels weekly presser, waits 3 days to talk.

— Dan Rieffer (@drieffer) October 9, 2014

Telling, indeed. Somebody tell Adam Himmelsbach.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Does it mean anything if a Bluegrass Poll shows that more people expect the Wildcats to win this year’s Governor’s Cup game?

  Well, no, not really, but it is nice to see that level of optimism.

• DJ Eliot was very disappointed in linebacker play in the run game:

  Hat tip: John Clay

• The computer rankings have Kentucky ahead of South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

  My own computer program has Kentucky ranked around 37th nationally.

• Lloyd Tubman pleads not guilty to first-degree rape charge.

• Land Grant Holy Land still hoping for an Alex Stump flip away from Kentucky and to them.

Kentucky basketball

• Heh.

• Marcus Lee’s key to playing time is offense, according to Nick Gray of the Kentucky Kernel. Sorry, but this is mistaken. His key is to defend well, rebound the ball, and be in the right position. Offense is irrelevant — Kentucky has more than enough players who can score.

• Men’s basketball single-game tickets are now on sale.

• Caleb Swanigan visiting UK this weekend. Could UK land yet another Indiana product?

• Marcus Lee has a love-hate relationship with Rock Oliver:

  "It’s definitely a love-hate relationship with me trying to gain weight," Lee aid. "We’ll walk from our locker room to the weight room, and we’ll just have a normal conversation, and I’ll step in the weight room and then we’re total enemies. We have a total love-hate relationship."

• Kentucky combine is part brash and part brilliant, just like Coach Cal. I’d say mostly brilliant. The brash part is overkill.

Other Kentucky sports

• Kentucky women fire a season low in the Erin Hills Intercollegiate golf tournament, finishing eighth. Remember, in golf, lower is better. :-)
• Men's soccer defeats UAB.

Links posts

• John Clay’s SEC Links

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• The Leach Report: Thursday Wildcat Links

College football

• This week in schadenfreude. Oh, man, was it a big week.

• Hmm.

  Pac-12 announces that officiating coordinator Tony Corrente has resigned citing "personal and professional reasons."

  — Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) October 9, 2014

  Given the issues the Pac-12 has had with officiating, this could be addition by subtraction.

• Playing in the SEC’s weaker East division this season is an advantage for teams like Kentucky.

• SEC Morning Links — ESPN

• Auburn fans bringing cowbells to Mississippi State? At least they aren’t planning on burning down the stadium.

College basketball

• Kyle Wiltjer worked hard on his body while sitting out last season. He needed to. Consider:

  "It’s easy for someone to say they’re going to be motivated during a redshirt year, but Kyle really followed through," Gonzaga assistant coach Tommy Lloyd said. "Kyle is extremely motivated. He put in a ton of time, whether it’s doubling up with our strength coach or coming in on his own at night and shooting or grabbing coaches for individual workouts. He really took advantage of his redshirt. Now he’s set up to have a great finish to his college basketball career here at Gonzaga."

  We wish Kyle the very best. The article goes on to mention what a great relationship Kyle still has with Coach Cal. Read the whole thing.

• Linked yesterday: Jeff Eisenberg’s best-case and worst case scenarios for the top 25.

  I think Rick Pitino should have this tatooed on his chest with a big UK logo under it:

  My biggest mistake I made in my life is when I left Camelot.

Other sports news

• A pretty good article on the fine line colleges must walk when dealing with allegations of sexual assault and athletetes. It’s a very difficult thing to do well, and I think that Kentucky has handled the Tubman matter just fine so far.

• Hamstring injury may keep James Young off the court for several weeks.

Other news

• Death rate in men with hip fractures is twice that of women. My father died after breaking his hip in 2013.

• Education in the 21st century: Harvard students think the United States is a bigger threat to world peace than ISIS. Via Fark.

• The Twitter death machine. Twitter is the devil.

• Country albums are ruling the charts this week. Blake Shelton makes me yawn, but I like Lady Antebellum.