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Following Thursday’s Rutgers vs. South Florida Big East matchup, at least two national writers lamented that the Bulls were out of the national title race while one-loss teams from more established Bowl Championship Series conferences lived to fight another day.

We’ve no problem with this sentiment, generally. Perhaps it is unfair that Oklahoma, Louisiana State, and Southern California, to name a few, can still dream of a national title while the best West Virginia and South Florida can hope for is a BCS bowl berth. Perhaps it’s also unfair the Big East champion only plays seven conference games while the champions from the SEC, Big 12, ACC, and Pac 10 play nine and the Big 10 champion plays eight.

The point, of course, is the BCS isn’t fair. This is no newsflash. Each team and each conference faces unique difficulties. In such a flawed system, the only time a team can really complain about not getting a title shot is to go undefeated. We can understand Boise State’s frustrations with its glass ceiling, sympathize with our SEC brethren Auburn’s plight in 2004-5, and wonder what else that Kerry Collins-led Penn State team could have done to get a piece of the national title. But we don’t feel sorry for South Florida or West Virgina.

But ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel certainly do. As noted, we’ve no beef with this sentiment. But we do have a beef with inconsistency.

Schlabach writes that an upstart program in a rebuilt league won’t get the second chance an SEC member gets:

The Tigers were given the benefit of the doubt a week ago, after the country’s No. 1-ranked team lost at No. 17 Kentucky 43-37 in triple overtime. LSU fell to only No. 5 in the human polls and was fourth in the BCS standings.

Cal’s surprising defeat to Oregon State last week was the 10th time a top-10 ranked team had lost to an unranked team during this unpredictable college football season. The Bulls became the 11th such victim on Thursday night.

But South Florida will be penalized more than LSU. And more than Oklahoma, which lost at Colorado 27-24 on Sept. 29. The Sooners are back to No. 5 in the BCS standings after beating Texas and Missouri in consecutive games.

[Link]

Mandel makes similar points:

When you’re an LSU or Oklahoma, you can lose a tough conference road game, brush it off and return to the top five within a couple weeks as if it never happened. When you’re USF, and you lose a tough conference road game just four days after an already skeptical set of voters tabbed you the No. 2 team in the country almost as an obligation, you can expect the court of public opinion to be somewhat less merciful.

…

Such is the still fragile state of the rebuilt Big East. When Kentucky beats LSU, it’s written off as a near-inevitability in the rough-and-tumble SEC. When Rutgers beats USF — just a couple weeks after losing to then-undefeated Cincinnati, which itself turned around and lost to Louisville — it’s an indictment against both program and conference.

…

Those polls and computers can be awfully harsh about losses to Rutgers.

If only you’d lost instead to Kentucky.

[Link]

Leaving aside the fact LSU’s resume is more impressive than South Florida’s — wins versus then-No. 9* and current No. 11 Virginia Tech, then-No. 12 and current No. 6 South Carolina, and then-No. 9 and current No. 14 Florida with a loss at then-No. 17 and current No. 8 Kentucky versus wins at then-No. 17 and current No. 18 Auburn and then-No. 5 and current No. 9 West Virginia with a loss at unranked Rutgers (Sagarin Rating: 38) — we’d just like to see consistency.

For his part, Schlabach left the Cats for dead after their Thursday night road loss to then-No. 11 South Carolina two weeks ago. He certainly wasn’t concerned the Cats would plummet from the top ten just because they lost to a good team on the road — indeed, he suggested they deserved to by stating they weren’t ready to compete for the SEC East. And when Kentucky did just that and dropped from No. 8 to No. 17, we certainly don’t recall Mandel writing that Kentucky — a program with little noteworthy football history, kind of like South Florida — was being unfairly penalized because it lost a road game after a short week to non-traditional power South Carolina — a program whose rise over the last few seasons is not unlike that of Rutgers.

We also doubt either writer will protest when upstarts Arizona State of the Pac 10 and Kansas of the Big 12 suffer their first losses and plummet in the polls, either.

Oh well. Poor out a little liquor for the Big East’s title chances.

*For simplicity’s sake, we used Associated Press rankings here.

In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.

So, we didn’t have time to put this together two weeks ago and instead threw up this half-hearted post. The football gods were not impressed, and Kentucky played its worst game of the season and lost to South Carolina.

Last week we again didn’t have time to put the Weekly Update together, so we simply posted nothing. No more mailing it in from us, then. Let’s get to it after the jump. (more…)

As we forewarned, we were swamped with work this week and lacked the time or energy to put together the Kentucky Football Weekly Update. You have our appologies.  

But since we’ve been posting these things the Cats have kept on winning, so we wanted to get something up before kickoff. And this is it.

Onward and upward!

In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.

Another week, another head-turning victory for the University of Kentucky football team. Kentucky’s victory against Arkansas in Fayetteville solidified Kentucky’s place on the national scene as the Cats rocketed up the polls to heights not scene in our lifetime. Let’s get to it.

The polls. Kentucky’s second upset victory on the spin saw the Cats move from No. 21 to No. 14 in the Associated Press Top 25 and from No. 23 to No. 15 in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll. [Link]

CBSSports. The Cats rose from No. 20 to No. 14 in the CBSSports.com 120. [Link] Saturday’s opponent, Florida Atlantic, is ranked No. 75. Like last week, CBSSports has the Cats in the Chick-fil-A bowl in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 31. But this week CBSSport projects Clemson as the Cats’ opponent (last week Boston College was projected). In Heisman news, all five of CBSSports experts have Kentucky quarterback Andre’ Woodson in their top five. Woodson is tied for second in the overall consensus. [Link]   

Also at CBSSports, Kentucky is the subject of a glowing article — given top billing on the CBSSports.com college football page — posted Monday by senior writer Dennis Dodd:

It’s weird how quick things change in college football. It’s astounding how quickly fortunes have changed in the state of Kentucky. Louisville came into the season as a national championship contender. It left Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium amid boos Saturday after losing to woeful Syracuse.

Kentucky is the toast of the state, and college football after a 4-0 start for only the second time since 1983. Back-to-back comeback wins against Louisville and Arkansas have left the Wildcats with their highest AP ranking (14th) since 1977. The last time Kentucky was 4-0 with at least one conference win was 1950 when Bear Bryant guided the program to a Sugar Bowl win over No. 1 Oklahoma.

Quarterback Andre Woodson is a big-time Heisman candidate carrying an ongoing NCAA record — 296 consecutive passes without an interception. 

[Link]

SI.com. Kentucky rose from No. 20 to No. 13 in Stewart Mandel’s Power Rankings. (Florida Atlantic was No. 72.) Mandel was full of praise for Andre’ Woodson:

While Graham Harrell threw for 650-plus yards last week, and Tim Tebow is producing 400 yards of offense and Colt Brennan is on pace for another 50-touchdown year, Andre Woodson has yet to throw for more than 275 yards in a game. Yet, you’d be hard-pressed to find a QB playing better.

[Link]

FOXSports. Kentucky rose from No. 19 to No. 15 in the CollegeFootballNews.com Rankings at FOXSports.com:

The Ranking Should Be Higher Because … the Louisville win was nice, but everyone wanted to see if the Wildcats were for real. Question answered, as the offense came through in the clutch yet again in the win over Arkansas.

The Ranking Should Be Lower Because … the Louisville win doesn’t appear to be nearly as big a deal now, while beating Arkansas isn’t like beating one of the top SEC teams. The meat of the schedule is coming up.  

 [Link] Florida Atlantic is ranked No. 85.

ESPN.com. For the first time since the Worldwide Leader implemented the ’Power 16′ in 2002, Kentucky is in it. The Cats were 17th last week, and Kentucky entered the rankings at lucky No. 13 this week:

Andre’ Woodson showcased his Heisman talents at Arkansas. Most impressive Woodson stat? He hasn’t thrown an INT in 296 passes. Oh, by the way, UK is 4-0 and has won nine of its last 10.    

[Link] (Because we’re posting the Weekly Update earlier than usual this week, we don’t yet have ESPN.com’s bowl projections. We’ll update when they become available.)

In their Week 4 bowl projections, senior writers Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach both project Kentucky in the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida (where each had the Cats last week). Maisel sees Kentucky facing Michigan (last week he projected Michigan State as Kentucky’s opponent) while Schlabach sees a rematch of the 1999 Outback Bowl with the Cats facing Penn State (last week he projected Michigan as the Cats’ opponent). [Link]

Sagarin Rankings. Kentucky rose from No. 19 to No. 13. Florida Atlantic is at No. 108.

Vegas Oddsmakers’ Top-25. We’re adding this this week. Vegas thinks the Cats are overrated in the polls; Kentucky comes at No. 21 in the oddsmakers’ rankings. [Link]

In other news, Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that Woodson is a bona fide Heisman candidate:

Andre Woodson must be to your Heisman list: The Kentucky quarterback throws a late touchdown bomb to beat Louisville on Sept. 15. Down 29-21 in the fourth quarter, Woodson directs Kentucky to 21 unanswered points and a stunning 42-29 victory at Arkansas. On the season Woodson has completed 86 of 134 passing attempts (64.2 percent) for 1,008 yards and 11 touchdowns. He has thrown NO interceptions. In fact, he has thrown 296 straight passes without an interception, a new NCAA record.

[Link]

Other Wildcats are also garnering accolades; senior linebacke Wesley Woodyard was named Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Week and senior Jason Leger was named SEC Offensive Lineman of the week. [Link]. (KentuckySportsRadio.com’s Rob Gidel highlighted Leger’s play earlier today.)

And finally, as was noted earlier on this site, Kentucky football got some love from the Old Grey Lady today:

There have been a lot of long days the past few decades for the Wildcats (4-0), whose No. 14 ranking is their highest since Kalinowski’s senior year in 1977. But one of the few constants has been the program’s strong attendance. While their passion is not the same as it is for basketball, Kentucky fans have shown up and supported the football team through the coaching changes, N.C.A.A. scandals and lopsided defeats. Coach Rich Brooks said the team took more than 50,000 people to its bowl victory over Clemson last year.

“They’ve been pretty loyal through some pretty sorry football,” Brooks said in a telephone interview last night. “Some of it was while I was coaching here. They are being rewarded for being faithful.”

[Link]

Well, that’s that.

Onward and upward!

Defensive improvement?

Since we’ve got a fourth of the season in the books, seems like a good time to compare Kentucky’s 2007 defensive numbers to the 2006 numbers.

Through three games, Kentucky is 70^th in total defense (374 yards per game), 87^th in rushing defense (185 yards per game), 39^th in pass defense (189 yards per game), and 48^th in scoring defense (21.3 points per game.

Last season, Kentucky finished 118^th in total defense (453.38 yards per game), 108^th in rushing defense (184.5 yards per game),118^th in pass defense (268.92 yards per game), and 99^th in scoring defense (28.4 points per game).

Make of that what you will.

Kentucky’s triplets and all-time records:

Rafael Little, Keenan Burton, and Andre’ Woodson are all moving up the charts in some significant Kentucky all-time records. We wanted to see where they stand through three games:

Little came into the season with 1,983 rushing yards. He’s gained 388 yards in three games, which gives him 2,371 for his career. He’s 277 yards behind George Adams, whose 2,648 yard place him fourth on Kentucky’s all-time charts. If Little stays healthy and productive, he could catch Mark Higgs, at 2,892 yards, and Moe Williams, at 3,333 yards, but Kentucky’s all-time leader, Sonny Collins with 3,835, is surely out of reach.

Burton came into the season at fifth in receptions (123), fourth in yards (1,635), and fourth in touchdown receptions (16). His 21 receptions give him 144 for his career, which passes Derek Homer (129) and places Burton fourth behind Anthony White (194), Derek Abney (197) and Craig Yeast (208).

With 257 yards through three games, Burton passed Quentin McCord (1,743) to move into third in all-time receiving yardage with 1,892 yards. He trails Abney (2,339) and Yeast (2,899).

Burton has two touchdown receptions on the season, giving him 18 for his career. He passed Steve Mellinger (17) and is tied with Abney (18) for second in Kentucky history. Yeast leads with 28.

Andre’ Woodson has passed for 743 yards and 9 touchdowns through three games. He entered the season at third all-time in passing yards. He now has 6,394 yards and still trails Tim Couch (8,394) and Jared Lorenzen (10,354).

He entered the season at third in all-time touchdown passes (39) and now has 48 for his career. He trails Babe Pirilli (50), Tim Couch (74), and Jared Lorenzen (78).

Assorted punditry re Arkansas vs. Kentucky:

–ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd has Arkansas as his lock of the week.

–Phil Steele’s numbers like Arkansas (and he predicts the Cats to go 3-5 in conference — wins over Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Tennessee). [Link]
–During ESPN’s coverage of Tulsa vs. Oklahoma last night, Lou Holtz picked Arkansas and Mark May picked Kentucky. (Perhaps a good omen? Holtz picked Louisville and May Kentucky last week).

–On ESPN’s College Gameday this morning, Kirk Herbstreit picked Arkansas in a close game and Lee Corso picked Arkansas by at least two touchdowns. (Perhaps another good omen? Corso picked Louisville by at least two touchdowns at Louisville’s preseason luncheon.)

–John Clay of the Lexington Herald-Leader likes the Cats:

Kentucky at Arkansas: Before the season, I picked Kentucky to triumph in Fayetteville. The Cats have played well at Arkansas before. Big first road test. Razorback secondary had trouble with Alabama. And Tide doesn’t possess UK’s array of weapons. Still, Kentucky must avoid letdown after big Louisville win. Plus find a way to contain McFadden. Kentucky 30, Arkansas 20.

[Link]

–Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that he’s got a feeling about Kentucky:

Kentucky at Arkansas: Kentucky just posted one of the biggest wins in school history by beating No. 9 Louisville. Arkansas got beat at the buzzer at Alabama in a game that had fans second guessing coaches and officials. Kentucky coach Rich Brooks is making his first ever trip to Fayetteville, Ark. All the signs point to the Hogs but I’ve got a feeling about this Kentucky team. Kentucky 34, Arkansas 30.

(Perhaps a third good omen? Barnhart also picked us against Louisville.)[Link]

Bizarre day in college football

–Sure, as was demonstrated by Middle Tennessee State and our beloved Kentucky, Louisville probably had no business being ranked No. 9. But not in our wildest dreams (and certainly not in this guy’s — still got that ‘Unbridled Enthusiam’ buddy?) did we think the Cards would lose to Syracuse in Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium (or anywhere else, for that matter). One of the things that puzzles us about Louisville fans’ reactions to the Cards’ meltdown is that they all law the blame at the feet of the new coach, Steve Kragthorpe, but we don’t see anybody criticizing Athletic Director Tom Jurich for hiring him in the first place (especially since the ’search’ for Bobby Petrino’s successor that took all of 48 hours).

–Yea, they won, 41-40, but is there a team in college football more perpetually overrated than Nebraska? (And yes, we understand that people probably say the same thing about Kentucky Basketball as we’ve been a bit average the last two years yet always start the season in the top-25. But this has been going on with Nebraska since Frank Solich was there.)

What to make of Florida’s struggles with Ole Miss? We figure Coach Orgeron wanted revenge for Florida fan Orson Swindle hacking into Coach O’s Outlook page.

Onward and upward!

As we teased yesterday, we’ve got plenty to say about yesterday’s Courier-Journal column that took yet another swing at the University of Kentucky for moving the Kentucky/Louisville game from Week 1 to Week 3. [In case you missed our first take on the Kentucky press’ bashing of Kentucky’s decision to move the game, you can find it here.] 

With Kentucky winning the football game, most journalists seem to have let the topic die. But not the author of yesterday’s column. In a column about Kentucky football and its coach, Rich Brooks, that was generally positive, the author couldn’t help but add the following:

The national overnight Nielsen ratings are in: The game generated a rating of .4. Mark Mandel of ESPN said that translates to about 371,000 households.

The audience for Arkansas against Alabama, which overlapped with UK-U of L for much of the night on big daddy ESPN, was six times as large. Southern California and Nebraska pulled a 5.0 on ABC.

Last season, when the UK-U of L game was played on Sunday, Sept. 3, at 8 p.m. and televised on ESPN, it generated a 1.8 rating. That game was over at halftime and still drew more than four times the audience of Saturday’s back-and-forth thriller.

That is the reason the game works better on the season’s first weekend. No competition from other college games. Considerably better national exposure.

We take issue with all of the quoted passage except the second paragraph, and now we’ll explain why.

First, the first paragraph, which notes the .4 rating. The author relies on the ESPN Classic overnight rating of .4. Evidently he’s so eager to say “told ya so” that he couldn’t wait for the final ratings. Those came out today and revealed the game had a rating of .79, making it the highest-rated program in ESPN Classic’s history. [Link] Further, it was revealed today that the final ratings don’t include the numbers for viewers watching the broadcast on Lexington’s WKYT and Louisville’s WHAS. Once those numbers are included in the rating, it’s likely that the difference between last year’s broadcast and this year’s broadcast will be only a few hundred thousand.

Of course, this would still mean that more people saw last year’s game than this year’s. But the author’s primary argument has been that Kentucky was costing itself considerable national exposure — so much exposure, in his opinion, that the lost exposure outweighed any competitive advantage gained from moving the game. If the difference between this year’s rating and last year’s is ultimately only two or three tenths of a Nielsen point, however, that argument is debunked (especially since Kentucky vindicated its decision to move the game by winning the game). 

The mention of the rating of last year’s game brings us to our second point, and the third paragraph. Here the author notes that last year’s game, played during Week 1 on Sunday in primetime and broadcast on ESPN, generated a 1.8 rating, far exceeding the rating of this year’s game. If you take it at face value, it’s hard to argue with this. But if you look at what ESPN was airing on Sunday night in Week 1, you’ll see the author is comparing apples to oranges.

His comparison assumes that this year’s game could have been broadcast on ESPN on Sunday night during Week 1. But he neglects to mention that ESPN, which entered into a lucrative contract with NASCAR to resume televising races again in 2007, was airing the Sharp AQUOS 500 from 7 p.m., and ESPN2 was airing Sunday Night Baseball from 8 p.m. So, even on Sunday night in Week 1, the Cats wouldn’t have been playing on an ESPN network available on basic cable in primetime.

The game could have been televised on ESPN or ESPN2 with an afternoon kickoff, like the 2005 game. That game, according to Street&Smith’s Sports Business Daily (which is a pay site; we don’t have a free link), had a lower rating, 1.2, than last year’s game, which isn’t surprising since it wasn’t played in primetime. It’s entirely possible that the total rating of this year’s broadcast will surpass that figure.

Then there’s the final paragraph of the quoted passage. We’ve got two issues with this paragraph. First, the author again tries to have it both ways. As we noted the first time we weighed in on this, he spent most of the summer stating the game should be played during Week 1 because there were no other big games. Then he abandoned this position on August 28 and wrote that there were several games in Week 1 that would “reshape the Top-25″ (implying that there were plenty of teams that, unlike Kentucky, didn’t need a warm-up game or two before taking on a difficult opponent). With yesterday’s column he flipped back to his original position.

So, to review, on August 28, Week 1 included several high-profile matchups presumably capable of garnering considerable national attention, including Tennessee at Cal, Georgia Tech at Notre Dame, and the latest edition of the Bowden Bowl, Florida State at Clemson. But on September 18, just three weeks later, Week 1 offered “no competition from other college games.” It’s a bit rich to suggest that Kentucky/Louisville would have been the story in Week 1 when the author is perfectly aware that several other compelling games were played in Week 1.

This brings us to our second contention with the last quoted paragraph: the elephant in the room, Appalachian State. Obviously, Kentucky vs. Louisville wasn’t the most-watched game of the Week 3, but it was the most talked about game from Saturday night through Sunday morning. Coverage of the game led off SportsCenter during that time and was the marquee story in the ESPNNews loop. Obviously, this wouldn’t have been the case in Week 1 when Appalachian State’s upset was by far the biggest story in college football.  

Another thing the column fails to mention is that playing the game in Week 3 made it a bigger victory for Kentucky. Louisville entered the season as No.10/11, but was a top-10 team in both polls in Week 3.

Oh, and the author also fails to point out that even though last year’s game was played in Week 1, there were about thirty thousand more people in attendance at this year’s game. But maybe that was just a coincidence. Honk!

To us, it certainly seems like Kentucky had its cake and ate it too. We got the win (the most important thing), and we got plenty of exposure (a nice bonus).

And since we’re not Awful Announcing, here’s hoping this is our last word on the topic (but if another stubborn columnist churns out another piece bashing Kentucky’s decision to move the game, all bets are off).  

Onward and upward!

In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.

Well, we all know what the University of Kentucky football team did in Week 3, and the victory over then-No. 9 Louisville has put the Wildcats on the national scene, and some pundits are already forecasting a New Year’s Day bowl and another major upset. Let’s get to it.

The polls. Despite our fears to the contrary, the Cats’ upset victory was enough to get Kentucky into both polls. The Associated Press Poll, in which the Cats received no votes last week, ranks Kentucky at No. 21. [Link] The USA Today Coaches’ Poll, which had the Cats at No. 37 if you tally the ‘others receiving votes’ column, ranks Kentucky at No. 23. [Link] The Cats’ opponent in Week 4, Arkansas, was unlucky to drop out of both polls after losing to then-unranked Alabama. (If you’re curious about who voted Louisville ahead of Kentucky in this week’s AP Poll, check A Pudge Is A Sandwich, which we saw linked at KentuckySportsRadio.com.)

CBSSports. The Cats rose from No. 30 to No. 20 in the CBSSports.com 120. [Link] Arkansas is No. 27. CBSSports.com projects Kentucky will face Boston College in the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 31.

SI.com. For the second straight week, Kentucky made a big move in the SI.com Power Rankings, jumping from No. 37 to No. 20. Arkansas is No. 17. [Link] Kentucky remains absent from SI.com’s bowl predictions, which haven’t been updated since preseason.

FoxSports. Kentucky rose from No. 32 to No. 19 in the CollegeFootballNews.com Rankings at FoxSports.com.  Arkansas is No. 28.

ESPN.com. In their updated bowl projections, Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach both have Kentucky in the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida, on January 1. Maisel sees the Cats battling Michigan State while Schlabach sees Kentucky battling Michigan. [Link] Kentucky leads the ‘others receiving votes’ column of the Power 16 with nine points, four behind No. 16 South Florida. [Link]

Sagarin Ratings. Kentucky rose from No. 30 to No. 19. Arkansas is at No. 14. [Link] 

In other news, at least one national writer has Kentucky picked for big things. Matt Hayes of the Sporting News sees Kentucky posting a 10-win season, which seems a bit crazy to us, but we like the optimism:

Look, I told you earlier this summer the ‘Cats would beat Louisville. This is a case of a talented quarterback growing up with the same skill guys around him for three or four years. And finally, UK can block someone on the offensive line.

That adds up to one explosive offense.

Don’t think Kentucky is finished, either. This team is destined for a New Year’s Day bowl. The ‘Cats won’t beat the big boys in the SEC because, eventually, they’ll need a stop from their defense.

An upcoming run of games against South Carolina (in Columbia on Thursday night) and LSU and Florida at home, will dictate the season. UK could lose all three, finish 9-3 and play an overblown Big Ten team in the Outback Bowl. At that point, we’ll see win No.10 — the first 10-win season in 30 years.

[Link] (We saw this linked at the UK Blogger’s page at the CJ. And speaking of the CJ, yes, we saw the paper once again take another pop at UK for switchig the game, and we’ll have more to saw about that tomorrow.)

Finally, he may not be a national writer, but Tony Barnhart knows his football. He sees big things for the Cats as well (and he did pick Kentucky to beat Louisville):

Kentucky is going to record a major upset in the SEC: After knocking off No. 9 Louisville Saturday night in Lexington, the Wildcats have now won eight of their last nine games dating back to last season. The only loss in that stretch was to Tennessee (17-12) in a game Kentucky had several chances to win. Kentucky has SEC home games with LSU, Florida, Mississippi State, and Tennessee. The Wildcats will win at least two of those.

[Link]

To wrap up, most everybody sees the Cats at a top-25 team with a bona fide shot at a New Year’s Day bowl. Of course, a loss at Arkansas this weekend (and we’re 6.5-point dogs last we checked), and we slip right back down. Here’s hoping we get it done in Fayetteville.

Onward and upward!

We’re hesitant to climb up on our high horse as every school has its share of obnoxious, crass, and vulgar fans. Yet, as far as we know, Kentucky’s actual players don’t run around flipping off opposing teams’ fans.

So, without further adu, here’s senior offensive lineman Breno Giacomini saying hello to the Kentucky faithful:

Something to remember the next time some Louisville fan is lecturing you about Kentucky’s lack of class.

Much has been made over the last few months about something we thought was a non-story — the decision of the University of Kentucky to market it’s football team in the Commonwealth’s largest city, Louisville. If you’re unaware, Kentucky’s marketing slogan for the football Wildcats is “Believe in Blue.” To market the Cats, the university has put up several billboards bearing things like, “Believe in Gatorade Baths,” “Believe in Loyalty,” and “Believe in Circus Catches.” [Images of all of them can be seen here.]

Despite their benign nature, the “Believe . . .” billboards have apparently caused quite a stir in Louisville, where Kentucky placed them close to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium (but also adjacent to I-65 and the Louisville airport).

Harry Douglas, a fantastic wide receiver for Louisville and also a bit of geography buff, apparently, had this to say about the billboards in Louisville:

Wow. Whoever put them up there, it’s ridiculous. Lexington is in Lexington, and Louisville is in Louisville. [Link]

That quote appeared in a Courier-Journal story that — like every other CJ story that mentions the billboards — failed to mention Louisville’s decision several years ago to place billboards around the state promoting its athletic programs.* (There’s one adjacent to I-75 in northern Rockcastle County, for example. Bet the Rockcastle County UofL Alumni Chapter is very active. Bet Brad Durham loves it.) Of course, the CJ never mentions Louisville’s decision to schedule a game ahead of the UK/UofL game in 2001 to ensure Louisville had an extra game to prepare for Kentucky when its harping on Kentucky’s decision to move the game to Week 3, either.

Anyway, let’s get to last night. We were killing time before going out to dinner by watching the Troy/Oklahoma State game. The game was delayed because of weather, so Reece Davis, Lou Holtz, and Mark May were filling the delay by discussing this week’s games. After Holtz and May discussed UK/UofL (Holtz picked the Cards and May picked the Cats, for what it’s worth, and that’s not much, we’d say), Davis had this to say:

You know Kentucky bought billboards all around the state — “Believe in Blue” — and they featured some of the prominent Wildcat players. They put some in Louisville as well, and it got under Harry Douglas’ skin, he said “Hey, Louisville is in Louisville, and Lexington is in Lexington.”

Harry, I know you’re on your way to law school, but last time I checked, Louisville was in Kentucky. And it is the state university, I think they can put billboards there if they want.

This made our night.

We’re waiting for someone to ask Douglas how he feels about the Kentucky Derby being run in Louisville. Or the fact that Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium is adjacent to the Kentucky fairgrounds.

Onward and upward!

*To his credit, the author of the story did mention the Louisville billboards in a subsequent blog post. He noted, correctly, we think, that there’s a difference between placing a billboard in Frankfort and placing one next to a stadium. He failed to note that “Believe in Blue” was considerably less, how should we put this, less trash talkish?, than “We’re miles ahead.” [Link] This would be relevant, we feel, since the story was about how Louisville lets its play do the talking.

In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.

Week 2 saw the University of Kentucky Wildcats overcome a disappointing first half to comfortably dispatch the Kent State Golden Flashes, 56-20. Granted, Kent State isn’t the most formidable of opponents, but they do have a road win over a school from a Bowl Championship Series conference, Iowa State. (The Cyclones lost to a 1-AA school — not going to see any of that subdivision terminology from us – Northern Iowa, in Week 2. But, hey, they’re still in the Big XII last we checked.) Plus, as the Lexington Herald-Leader’s John Clay pointed out, this game had all the signs of a classic trap game. So it was nice to see Kentucky run out 36-point winners.

However, the win did little to impress the pollsters, and just like last week, Kentucky is nowhere near the AP Poll or the USA Today Coaches’ Poll top-25. Kentucky continues to receive no points in the AP Poll [Link], but improved from four to nine points in the Coaches’ Poll [Link]. That moves the Cats from No. 39 to No. 37 if you count the teams in the ‘others receiving votes’ column.

CBS Sports. The Cats rose from No. 32 to No. 30 in the CBSSports.com 120 [Link]. That site’s updated bowl predictions still place Kentucky in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, against Kansas [Link]. 

SI.com. The Cats moved the most here, jumping from No. 44 to No. 37 in SI.com’s Power Rankings [Link]. Kentucky remains absent from SI.com’s bowl predictions, which haven’t been updated since preseason.

FOX Sports.* Kentucky is ranked No. 32 in the CollegeFootballNews.com rankings at FOXSports.com [Link].

ESPN. Somewhat surprisingly, the WorldWideLeader doesn’t do a 1-120 ranking, but senior writers Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach update their bowl predictions weekly. Schlabach has moved the Cats from a matchup with Southern Miss in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, to a matchup with Kansas State in the Independence Bowl. Maisel has moved Kentucky from a matchup with Kansas State in the Independence Bowl (the matchup his colleague predicts this week) to a matchup with Florida State in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee. (College football fans in Kentucky might also be curious to know that Schlabach has moved Louisville from the Sugar Bowl to the Gator Bowl, but Maisel still has the Cards in the Sugar Bowl) [Link].

USA Today.** Jeff Sagarin’s rankings place the Cats at No. 30, with a rating of 80.65 [Link].

Gennerally, then, we’d say these sites see Kentucky as a top-35 team headed for a third-tier bowl. (In our off-the-top-of-our-heads ranking system, BCS bowls would be Tier I, other New Year’s Day bowls would be Tier II, and the rest would be Tier III). That seems about right. Of course, if the Cats pull the upset on Saturday, we’d expect to see some Outback Bowl projections (or, if we dare to be so bold, Citrus Bowl projections — ha! we aspire to that which Spurrier deplores!). But, judging from this weeks’ polls, a win against Louisville still might not get the Cats in either top-25 poll.

Onward and upward!

*No, we didn’t neglect FOX Sports’ rankings last week because Jay Glazer is a muppet. We were simply unaware FOX Sports provided rankings. 

In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.  

Kentucky’s predictable romp against outmanned and outclassed Eastern Kentucky University did little to change the Cats’ status as a team generally expected to land in a lower-tier bowl, which was to be expected.

The Cats are still nowhere near either the AP Poll or the USA Today Coaches’ Poll. Kentucky received no points in the former [Link] and four points in latter [Link], good for a No. 39 ranking if you count the teams ahead of them in the ‘others receiving votes’ column. We were really hoping the Cats would fare a bit better in the polls as we’d love to see a ranked Kentucky face a top-10 Louisville (more on this in the week before the Louisville game). But after Kentucky received such little love in the preseason polls, it became clear that wasn’t going to happen. This isn’t too surprising as Kentucky, even when bowl-worthy (think back to 1998-1999 and 2002) has never received much respect from the pollsters. We will confess to being disappointed at seeing the Clemson team Kentucky soundly defeated last December sneak into the AP Poll at No. 25 and leading the ‘others receiving votes’ pack in the Coaches’ Poll. But, again, we can’t say that we’re surprised.

Over at CBS Sports, the Cats rose from No. 36 to No. 34 in the CBSSports.com 120 [Link]. That site’s bowl predictions, updated September 3, place the Cats in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, against Kansas [Link].

SI.com’s Power Rankings rank Kentucky decidedly lower at No 44, up from a pre-season rank of No. 46 [Link]. Kentucky is absent from SI.com’s bowl predictions, which haven’t been updated since August 24 [Link].

ESPN.com, however, is higher on the Cats. Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach, whose predictions were updated September 4, have Kentucky bowling [Link]. Maisel, the man who named Kentucky’s senior quarterback, Andre’ Woodson, an All-American, has Kentucky in the Independence Bowl against Kansas State. Schlabach has the Cats in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, against Southern Mississippi.

We’d also planned at combing through the mountain of preview magazines we collected this Summer to see how their predictions for the Cats turn out. But everybody picked the Cats to win against EKU anyway, and we’d much rather watch Federer/Roddick at the US Open.

Onward and upward!

We’ve been avoiding this topic ever since we started making our sporadic contributions to this blog. But we’ll remain reticent no longer.

Despite our love of and frequent posts about the Other Football, our first love was and our true sporting love remains college football, specifically University of Kentucky Football and Southeastern Conference Football. No posts on the topic notwithstanding, our moniker can attest to that.

This is the most anticipated Kentucky Football season of our twenty six years. It’s the rarest of Kentucky seasons: one in which the expectations of the fan base are actually well grounded (well, most of them), one in which our starting quarterback is an All-American, one in which the Cats are actually expected to be a factor in the race for the SEC East title, the toughest division in all of college football.

Although these topics have received much attention from the local press, we concede, the No. 1 offseason topic for the Commonwealth’s journalists has been the fact that Kentucky and the University of Louisville will be playing in Week 3 and not Week 1 of this year’s season. And after a week in which the Commonwealth’s pundits directed yet another round of criticism toward the Cats, we can remain silent no longer.

(more…)

Every other journalist in the United States has sounded off on David Beckham’s arrival in Major League Soccer, so we shouldn’t have been too surprised to see his name pop up in this week’s edition of Dr. Z’s NFL Mailbag at SI.com. And considering nearly every old-guard sportswriter has denigrated Beckham, MLS, the sport, or all three, we shouldn’t have been surprised by Dr. Z’s decision to do so, too.

But does that mean it’s too much to ask that a writer of Dr. Z’s experience have at least an understanding of irony?

Here’s the good doctor’s take on Becks’ arrival:

[F]rom Jonas of San Francisco comes this question that all Americans must take seriously:

“Should the NFL be worried about MLS as competition now that Beckham has arrived? I mean, they do have a team in L.A., which the NFL can’t seem to do.”

You’re almost right there, Jonas. Except that the place they have chosen in which to showcase the Big B is Carson, Calif. And didn’t you read how the crowd of 27,000 in the Home Depot Center absolutely went wild, even though his team, the Galaxy, lost, 1-0.

“They got drilled,” My Flame Queen said. OK, honey. Let’s remember who tells the jokes around here. The serious part is that Hollywood turned out in a big way. I can see it now.

“Driver … driver … I believe you’ve driven right by Carson. We told you to turn right at the Plumbing Supplies sign.”

OK, ha ha, let’s get serious. Threatening to immediately eclipse Beckham in popularity is the Chicago Fire’s Cuauhtémoc Blanco, whose attributes, according to the AP report of his debut against Celtic AC Sunday, were his “stutter-step dribbles, change of direction and uncanny backward passes.”

OK, so only 15,719 showed up in Bridgeview, Ill., at Toyota Park, but that’s almost capacity, isn’t it?

“Toyota Park?” Linda says. “You think NFL players are tough enough to play a game in a car lot?” That does it. Time to move on.

While we were under the impression that the Los Angeles Galaxy playing in Carson, California, (or the Chicago Fire playing in Bridgeview, Illinois, or the FC Dallas playing in Frisco, Texas, or the New England Revolution playing in Foxborough, Massachusetts, or the New York Red Bulls playing in East Rutherford, New Jersey) was comparable to the New York Jets and New York Giants playing in East Rutherford (or the Dallas Cowboys playing in Irvin, Texas, or the Washington Redskins playing in Landover, Maryland, or the New England Patriots playing in Foxborough).

We must have been mistaken.

And then there’s the Toyota Park jab. Being fans of England’s Premier League, we’ve read more than our share of jokes about the names of MLS stadiums in the English press. (For what it’s worth, Dallas’ Pizza Hut Park, the Galaxy’s Home Depot Center and the Colorado Rapids’ Dicks Sporting Goods Park all attract much more ridicule than Chicago’s Toyota Park.) It’s certainly ironic that a nation that sees nothing funny about shirt-sponsors and turns a blind eye toward tradition-rich grounds like the Reebok Stadium, Emirates Stadium, and the JJB Stadium, amongst others, would find MLS’ corporate-themed stadiums hilarious.

And it’s doubly ironic for Dr. Z to take issue with Toyota Park given that he makes his living writing about athletes who play at [pause for deep breath] Qwest Field, Monster Field, McAfee Coliseum, Invesco Field, Qualcomm Stadium, Reliant Stadium, the Edward Jones Dome, the RCA Dome, Ford Field, Heinz Field, LP Field, Raymond James Stadium, Bank of America Stadium, FedEx Stadium, M&T Bank Stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, Gillette Field, and (we saved the best for last) the University of Phoenix Stadium [and exhale].

Perhaps next week’s mailbag will explain the inherent comedic value of ‘Toyota Park’. Or maybe The Flaming Redhead can simply give us a hilarious one-liner about each corporate stadium. That would be enough material for a whole column.

(And, yes, the question that prompted Dr. Z’s take on MLS was ridiculous. We love the league and the sport, but MLS doesn’t compete with the NFL. Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association don’t compete with the NFL. It’s simply in a league of its own.)

No, Liverpool’s defeat to AC Milan in the Champions League Final hasn’t crushed Allenby For Heisman’s will to type. Buying a house and moving, however, certainly did. But that’s sorted, and we’re back.

Where to start after a month away? With the CONCACAF Gold Cup, of course. The tournament wrapped up on Sunday with the United States beating Mexico, 2-1, in Chicago. But A4H! isn’t here to offer stale match analysis, we’re here to point out that the TV ratings for the event were a success (this news is also a bit stale, admittedly).

Yahoo! Sports, via the Associated Press, reported on Tuesday that Spanish channel Univision’s coverage of the Gold Cup Final attracted 41% more viewers than NBC’s coverage of the decisive game five of the Stanley Cup Finals.

The United States’ 2-1 come-from-behind victory over Mexico on Sunday received a 2.5 fast national rating on Univision, the network said Tuesday. That translates to 2.83 million households, nearly double the 1.48 million homes that watched the 2005 Gold Cup final between the United States and Panama.

This year’s English-language telecast was on the Fox Soccer Channel, which is available in about 30 million homes and is not rated.

Anaheim’s series-ending 6-2 victory over Ottawa in the Stanley Cup on June 6 received a 1.8 rating on NBC, which comes to 2,005,000 households.

SoccerAmerica also reported Tuesday that Univision’s coverage of Mexico’s Gold Cup semifinal victory of Guadeloupe was Thursday’s most-watched program.

Last Thursday’s Mexico-Guadeloupe in the Gold Cup semifinals was viewed by 4,024,000 persons age 2+ on TeleFutura, making the most-viewed program of any kind on that network.

Amazingly, TeleFutura captured the No. 1 rank for the Thursday 10-11pm time slot, outdelivering all other broadcast networks, English or Spanish, among adults 18-34 (1,600,000), adults 18-49 (2,800,000), men 18-34 (1,000,000), men 18-49 (1,900,000) and men 25-54 (1,800,000). TeleFutura also outdelivered the combined prime-time audiences for the entire night of CBS and ABC among men 18-34 (554,000).

We’re not here to slag off hockey. (Trust us, as soccer fans, we know what it’s like to constantly have our favorite sport denigrated.) Or to claim some watershed moment for the growth of United States soccer. (After all, common sense tells us that most of the viewers watching on Univision were primarily interested in Mexico.)

We just want to point out that this is another example of soccer’s potential as a spectator sport in the United States. We’re not daft enough to think that many of those watching Team Mexico on Univision will tune in to, say, ESPN2’s Primetime Thursday coverage of Major League Soccer. But at least MLS is doing more to attract a Latino audience with its inception of the SuperLiga and its TV deals with Fox Sports en Español and the Univision family of networks.

Onward and upward!

This wasn’t quite the inverse of the 2005 Champions League Final. While Allenby For Heisman!’s beloved Liverpool were the better team, they certainly weren’t dominant the way Milan were for about eighty percent of the 2005 match. Nevertheless, it’s hard to look past the fact that the team that deserved to win in 2005 lost, and the team that deserved to win in 2007 lost. That must go down as the story of these two matches.

While Manchester United made Milan look like 1970 Brazil in the second leg of their semi-final tie, Liverpool made the Italians look ordinary. Indeed, the Merseysiders had the better chances in the first half and looked quite comfortable until Xabi Alonso was judged, a bit harshly, to have felled Kaka on the edge of the area in the dying minutes of the first half. Andrea Pirlo struck the ensuing free kick toward Pepe Reina’s far post, and the Liverpool keeper looked to have it covered. But the ball fortuitously struck Pippo Inzaghi’s arm and bounced into the Liverpool goal, wrongfooting Reina and allowing Milan to take the lead into the half.

Depending on who you support, the deflection may or may not have been a handball. After seeing the replay, we thought it was. But, in the interest of candidness, after seeing it in real time and before seeing a replay, we didn’t even know the shot was deflected. So we really don’t have much room to criticize.

Here it is; you be the judge:

We’re a bit torn. Our first thought is that Pippo is an opportunist not against bending the rules. But, then again, is he quick-thinking enough to do that intentionally?

Milan tacked on a second goal after Liverpool, chasing the equalizer, subbed the superb Javier Mascherano for Peter Crouch. The Argentine’s absence allowed Kaka to finally find the space that had eluded him all night, and his through ball was expertly finished by Inzaghi in the eighty-second minute.

Liverpool finally found the net in the eighty-ninth minute after Dirk Kuyt headed home Daniel Agger’s flick off of a corner. For a moment it seemed like a comeback was on the cards. But then . . .

[WARNING — POTENTIAL SOUR GRAPES] the assistant referee signaled only three minutes of stoppage time. Let’s see, in the regular forty-five minutes of the second half, there were two goals, five substitutions, two stoppages for injuries – one for Inzaghi and one for Alessandro Nesta – and a fan running onto the field. And all we get is three minutes?

But wait, there’s more, we didn’t even get to play the minimum three minutes of stoppage time. The referee blew the match dead about two minutes, forty-five seconds into stoppage time, after a Milan substitution, we might add.[/WARNING — POTENTIAL SOUR GRAPES]

Enough of that, though. After the oping goal, it seemed that this simply wasn’t Liverpool’s night. That’s football. The most talented team often doesn’t win, and the team who plays the best on the day regularly doesn’t win. That’s what makes football unique. And that’s what makes it wonderful.

Congrats to Milan. They’re a classy side, despite their match-fixing benefactors.

Roll on August. Give us an out-and-out goal-scorer, a left-winger (or a fit Harry Kewell), and a left back whose priority is defending, and we’ll be genuine title challengers (oh, and cover for Carragher and Agger — assuming Sami Hyypia leaves). Until then . . .

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the Storm there’s a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart,
And you’ll never walk alone.
You’ll never walk alone.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart,
And you’ll never walk alone.
You’ll ne-ever walk alone.

Onward and upward!