Coaches have to play it one game at a time. We don’t. And for dedicated followers of Kentucky football, looking ahead means looking to the game that will determine how Big Blue Nation feels about this 2021 football season.
That would be Louisville. You know, the Louisville Cardinals. The archrivals up the road. After a one-year Governor’s Cup hiatus because of COVID-19, this year’s regular-season finale is Nov. 27 at Cardinal Stadium. It’s basically the 2020 game pushed back to 2021.
I know, I know, Kentucky plays New Mexico State first. That’s this Saturday, Senior Day at Kroger Field. No offense to former Kentucky quarterback and assistant coach Doug Martin, now the New Mexico State coach, but the Aggies are bad. Really bad. They’re 1-9 on the season after Saturday’s 59-3 loss at No. 2-ranked Alabama. Their lone win came over FCS team South Carolina State. Jeff Sagarin’s computer rankings place New Mexico State at No. 185. Reminder: There are 130 teams playing FBS football.
Meanwhile, Kentucky improved to 7-3 overall and 5-3 in the SEC with its 34-17 win at Vanderbilt on Saturday. Mark Stoops’ Cats clicked on all cylinders in the first half, then throttled down in the second. Up 31-3 at halftime, they scored three more points. The defense allowed back-to-back touchdown drives. A 21.5-point favorite, Kentucky won by 17.
For the BBN faction that lives online, this was apparently unacceptable. Never mind that the Cats defeated Vanderbilt for the sixth consecutive game or clinched the program’s second winning conference season since 1977. (The first was just three years ago, in 2018.) Kentucky failed at a chance to crush the Commodores.
not the performance fans wanted to see coming off 3 straight losses…
— Larry Cambron (@larrycambron25) November 14, 2021
First of all, that’s not Stoops’ style. He’s more Kirk Ferentz at Iowa (Stoops’ alma mater) than Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss. Stoops hired Liam Coen from the NFL to bring a more balanced offense, not throw it 60 times a game. His recipe remains a strong running game complemented by a strong defense.
That recipe has worked. Did we mention UK finished its SEC schedule 5-3? This season, Kentucky beat Florida for the first time in Lexington since 1986. It beat LSU by more than two touchdowns for the first time since 1999. I know Florida isn’t Florida this year and LSU isn’t LSU, but there won’t be asterisks in the record book. Kentucky football fans unhappy with 7-3 must be new.
“My granddad always told me that games are like a ladder,” UK running back Chris Rodriguez said afterward. “Each win, you take one step on that ladder. Once you get knocked down, how are you going to respond? How are you going to execute going forward? Are you going to say, ‘Oh well’ and walk away, or are you going to keep climbing that ladder? We kept climbing.”
(Rodriguez was sporting a Nashville-style cowboy hat in his postgame Zoom session, by the way. He wouldn’t tell us where he got it. Said he didn’t want us to steal his look. He even tipped his hat to us at the end of the interview. Literally.)
OK, now back to Louisville. The Cards improved to 5-5 with a 41-3 romp over Syracuse on Saturday. It was Lamar Jackson Day, complete with the former Heisman Trophy winner and current Baltimore Ravens quarterback in attendance. Now 3-4 in the ACC, Scott Satterfield’s team finishes up its conference schedule Thursday at Duke at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN.
The Cardinals are dangerous. They could easily be 7-3. They lost 37-34 at Wake Forest and 34-33 at home to Virginia. Quarterback Malik Cunningham has become a Jackson-style weapon. He has rushed for 16 touchdowns and thrown for 13 more. And, oh yes, Louisville will have had eight days to prepare for UK, compared to six for the Cats.
The stakes: A Kentucky win two days after Thanksgiving means UK has a shot at its second 10-win season in four years. A Kentucky loss means a sizable portion of its fan base will judge 2021 on what could have happened instead of what actually happened. Should be a fun Governor’s Cup.
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