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Mid-Summer Night Dreaming About UK Football
Are “Great Expectations” Justified For 2018 UK Football?
Hello, Big Blue Nation; Debbie Downer here.
We are about to begin the annual Bluegrass ritual of paving the way for the upcoming UK football season with justifications for great things ahead, with dogmatic statements of “Great Expectations.” Color me cynical. Every summer, the SEC and national sports press corps kills hundreds, indeed thousands of trees in the name of pre-season analysis and prognostication for the upcoming college football season.
Almost every one of these forecasting seasons reveals a major dichotomy between the prevailing views of the national observers and those close to the Big Blue Nation about the prospects for UK football. The national press nearly always ignores the Cats as having any chance to affect the race for the SEC East championship, much less to win it. Yet, the local voices chime in almost every year that this will be the year for the Cats to not just be impactful, but actually be in the hunt for a SEC East Championship.
History tells a much different story about expectations for UK football. That is why this UK football team gets literally no respect from the SEC media. The SEC media actually understand SEC and college football better than sports writers anywhere else in the world. Most of the national press actually take their lead with respect to SEC football from the SEC press. The local voices consistently have overstated, oversold the UK football prowess over the years.
For example, the mid-summer chatter about 2018 football is a study in these contrasts. The SEC forecasts identify some potential for five of the SEC East teams, but ignore Kentucky and Vanderbilt from those discussions. The local forecasters hold firm to the line that this UK football team will challenge Florida in the Swamp, best South Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt, and probably be in a position to beat Mississippi State in Lexington. So, the question condenses down to whether this UK team will win one, if any, SEC games or win 4 or more SEC games. Translated to a full season, will the Cats win 4 or less or win 7 or more games in 2018.
Here is my dose of reality.
If this team is practicing football in December for a 13 th game again this year, the 3rd year in a row, then Coach Stoops should be awarded the SEC Coach of the Year. If this team wins 7 or more before December, then Coach Stoops must be on the list of finalists for National Coach of the Year. The most likely outcome for the 2018 season is 4 or 5 wins, and come Thanksgiving, the chatter going into the Louisville game at best will be that a win over the Cards is necessary to go bowling for the third year in a row.
To achieve the 4 to 5 win level, the Cats must get by Central Michigan on September 1. Vegas has this game as a 17 point UK advantage at Kroger Field. Unfortunately, while I see Central Michigan as a likely UK win, I believe the final margin is more likely to be less than a touchdown, low to mid-single digits. As an additional cautionary factor, just look at the history of season openers during the Stoops' Era. Coach Stoops' teams' openers have been marked by lackadaisical play, uninspired play, much closer final margins than expected, and unexpected losses. If the coach cannot have his team inspired, excited, and ready to get it on in the first game of the year, what does that say about the coach and his teams?
Stumble out of the starting blocks this season, and getting to 3 wins may be difficult.
Therefore, I want to wrap the traditional Conditions Precedent to a good season around some numbers. What does the condition precedent, if the Cats “perform well” against CMU mean? I take Vegas as the expert in this regard, so if the Cats “perform well” against CMU, they should beat CMU by more than the Vegas expectation by beating CMU by 20 or more points. Clearly, if that happens, the Cats have provided a basis for a hopeful trip into the swamp the following week and the team's prospects for the entire season will be brighter than Debbie Downer's current perspective.
However, let's say the Cats beat CMU by less than 10 points? I believe that a slim win over CMU on September 1 means the 4 to 5 win forecast is closer to reality than most Big Blue Fans will want to admit.
Shameful as the mere suggestion may be, what if the Cats sleep walk through most of the game on September 1, and their frantic flurry of activity at the end falls short and the Cats open with a loss to CMU? First, one of the precious 4 or 5 wins is immediately off the table, and this team will likely struggle with other opponents more than anticipated, placing 1 or more of the remaining projected wins in jeopardy. Two or three wins for the season would be in play.
In about 2 weeks, fall camp will begin, and for about a month we will be entertained daily with observations by those allowed access to the team about how much older, experienced, faster, stronger, bigger, talented, skilled, focused, .. (you name the attribute) the 2018 Cats are. However, these proclamations will lack a frame of reference. Do these observers mean this UK team is all those things better than UK teams gone by? Do these observers mean this UK team is all those things as compared to average SEC standards?
It happens every August, and yes, occasionally, those reports actually precede a season that produces results that exceed expectations, but those high achieving seasons have been rare. My observations have been that the more common scenario is the team underperforms these expressed expectations. I suppose it proves the old adage that even blind UK sports reporters find acorns every now and then, but I have sadly concluded it best to tune out this seasonal blabber about the upcoming UK team and season while waiting to see the team's on the field performance in game 1. Game Ones have told us more about how the UK football team will perform over the seasons than all the August blabber combined.
Fortunately, this August, we get the once every 4 years August with UK Basketball to silence the UK football frothing at least for 7 to 10 days, so it will be a little easier to reach September 1 without all the football background noise deafening the senses.
This is Debbie Downer checking out for now. Go Big Blue!
Submitted by Richard Cheeks
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