Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Ohio Gameday Edition

Today, the Kentucky Wildcats take on the Ohio Bobcats in a game that will go a long way toward telling us if the Wildcats are on, ahead of, or behind schedule.

Tweet of the Morning

Madison Southern beats Madison Central 42-11. Damien Harris 318 yards, 4 TDs with UK Coach Mark Stoops looking on.

— Mike Fields (@MikeFieldsNotes) September 6, 2014

Yeah, it’s all the rage today.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Tom Leach’s take on the game today. Consider:

  Horses coming into the top-caliber racing at Keeneland are often rightfully discounted when they’re coming off wins against much lesser competition but everyone once in awhile, there’s a performance that has to be seen to be appreciated for its legitimacy. Today, we’ll gain some insight into just how much better the Kentucky offense is.

  I think this is exactly right. But we’ll also get some insight into the defense, and if it is as mediocre as last game suggested, that will be our new worry.

• Mark Stoops had been recruiting DB Kendall Randolph since long before he came to Kentucky.

• Scout’s preview of today’s game.

• Damien Harris talks about Stoops’ visit to his game last night where he ran for 318 yards, and his visit to Ohio State this weekend. Consider:

  Jon Clark [Harris’ coach], on the statement of Stoops watching the whole game:
  "It’s huge. They’ve got a game tomorrow. That’s a big deal for them to hang out the whole game, and I was shocked when I saw them after the game. I didn’t know they stayed the whole game. That is rare, especially knowing they have a game tomorrow. But they recruit tirelessly now. Anybody in this state knows. Any day they can be here, they’re the first ones here. And they’re here all day. And they call when they can. There’s nobody that’s going to work harder than that staff does. There really isn’t. Coach Scott has done an outstanding job with Damien. Coach Stoops as well. Nobody’s going to be there more and put in more work than they have. It’s not going to happen."

  More here and here.

  If we lose Damien Harris to Urban Meyer, it won’t be for lack of effort, that’s for sure.

• State of the U (Miami Hurricanes) likes the cut of Kentucky’s jib in today’s game.

• Saturday Down South compares Frank Solich to Mark Stoops.

• The numbers for Kentucky’s offense by John Clay.

• Hey, we got us a freak! All right!

• Video of Damien Harris’ big game yesterday:

• Coach Stoops shows Damien Harris love by showing up in a helicopter:

Kentucky basketball

• Coach Cal had the basketball team over for dinner last night.

• UK 2016 top recruit Thon Maker is headed to Canada to play. Quite a bit of that kind of thing going on these days.

Other Kentucky sports

• Women’s soccer takes down the Louisville Cardinals for the fourth straight time. There are going to be players on that Louisville team that never know the taste of victory against Louisville in their entire career. Good.

• Kentucky volleyball falls to #6 Southern Cal.

Links posts

• John Clay’s SEC Links

• The Leach Report: Saturday Wildcat Links

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

College football

• Will South Carolina return to form against East Carolina? ECU has the same sort of offense that plagued USC East last week. Interesting game.

• Ole Miss takes on Vanderbilt today. This is another game which could tell us some things about both teams, and it’s about the best game available in the SEC today.

• SEC Week 2 is an “Epic Feast of Cupcakes” according to Team Speed Kills.

College basketball

• Leonard Hamilton lands a five-star forward at Florida State. The guy could always recruit, no doubt about it. For further proof, he also landed four-star shooting guard Malik Beasley.

• Nine Georgia Tech programs cited for NCAA rules violations, and the NCAA is charging Georgia Tech with failure to monitor. Most violations were in men and women’s basketball, and football.

• Bobby Knight hits a cow, avoids injury. But not to the cow, I guess. I wonder if he got out of the car and beat up the cow?

• Can UConn repeat as NCAA champion? Nope. There, saved you a click.

Other sports news

• Mo’ne Davis regrets that Geno Auriemma and UConn received an NCAA secondary violation for calling to congratulate her.

• Phil Mickelson withdraws from BMW championship to prepare for the Ryder Cup. He was playing lousy anyway.

Other news

• A study finds that customers who were treated rudely by the sales staff were willing to spend 10% more. What a world.

• Getting married? Hire a bridesmaid. It’s easier on your friends.