John Clay's Sidelines

(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

As provided by UK:

Louisville Head Coach Charlie Strong

Opening statement…

“This is a tremendous team victory for our team. We had said earlier to our team that we needed to have a statement game and after how we played last week we needed to come out and have a great game. The reason this is so important; we talk to our guys about changing the culture of this program. We’ve been down for three years and last year we had our year and you see us bounce back but we needed a statement game to change our culture and I mean in our university too. You see students walk around our campus with UK shirts and I always say to them if you’re going to walk around with UK stuff on you must have not got accepted to you UK but you are here so let’s support our school. You see alums who have graduated from our university that still have UK stickers on their car. We play two games early without selling out the stadium. Our alums should come to watch our players play and not worry about who we are playing. We have to change the culture within our program and if we continue to win then it will change so we have to change it ourselves.”

On traveling Louisville fans…

I love it, I came down here and spoke last year and we probably had 150 alums there, it’s great. It’s important for our university because they may always say we are the “step-child” but it’s important we start to win because then we can get the alums to support our university.”

On limiting Kentucky’s rushing attack…

“That’s what we needed to do on defense, stop the run. Our defense put enough pressure on the quarterback and made (Morgan) Newton make some bad throws and we ran him down. It was so critical to contain Newton.”

On saying that Kentucky was the better team before the game…

“I told the team on Thursday if we go play, then we are the better team. Our team has to play with some confidence and once you play with confidence you start believe. I told them it was all about them, we talk about changing the culture but it starts with them.”

On his feelings after this game compared to last year’s…

“It’s a game we needed to win as a statement game. It’s a victory, we should all be happy and it’s our state rivalry so we should all be happy about this one.”

For a view from the Louisville side, I asked Mark Ennis of the Big East Coast Bias blog for his view on the game.

Here is his take:

I can’t remember a Kentucky-Louisville game where I had less of an idea how it would play out. Kentucky has really only played well for about a quarter and a half in each of its first two games, and Louisville perhaps even less. This is likely one of the years where the game being in the third week of the season benefits both teams. If this had been an opening week game, it might have been even uglier than most expect tonight’s game to be.

Kentucky has been able to win the last four years because it has always had the ability to run and pass with the same personnel groups and could always punish Louisville with the tight end or with deep passes when Louisville bunched up to stop the run. This year’s team isn’t as dangerous. The running game started to look better towards the end of the Central Michigan game but Newton and the receivers are still so erratic that I don’t think they can reliably punish Louisville for crowding the line of scrimmage to stop the run the way Mike Hartline did the past three seasons. For that reason, combined with the Louisville defensive line finally being full strength with the return of BJ Butler, it’s hard for me to see Kentucky scoring much or moving the ball consistently.

That doesn’t mean Louisville will win, however. The Cardinals offensive line has been dreadful through two games. If Louisville gives up six sacks against Florida International and can’t run the ball consistently against Murray State, what is it going to do against a significantly bigger and better Kentucky front seven? Probably not much on the ground. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Louisville simply give up being a run first team in this game and try to test that secondary early on. Kentucky gave up nearly 300 yards passing to a Central Michigan team that ran with just one wide receiver in a lot of its formations last week. Louisville’s wide receivers present a mismatch for the Kentucky secondary, but only if Stein has any time at all to throw.

This game will closely resemble the 2008 game that was ugly from the start and only 10-2 heading into the fourth quarter. It could be blatant homerism, but I just have this feeling that Louisville will be able to score just enough to win today. Call it a Louisville win 16-13.

Updated: The correction.

Louisville’s senior associate athletics director Kenny Klein tweeted this morning that contrary to reports U of L has not returned any of its tickets for Saturday’s football game with Kentucky at Commonwealth Stadium.

Not sure where that was reported.

In other words, you can’t blame Saturday’s lack of a sellout, at least at this point, on the Cards.

I’d blame it on both teams struggling the first two weeks, and that $75 ticket price.

(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

Big Blue Links for Friday:

• Mark Story of the Herald-Leader writes that when UK and U of L announced on June 25, 1993, that they would resume a football rivalry that had been dormant since 1924, there was a bigger goal in mind: Elevating the game of football at all levels in the hoops-mad commonwealth. On the eve of the 18th modern football renewal of Cats-Cards, has the UK-U of L series had the positive impact on the overall state of football in Kentucky that was predicted?
• Tonight Kentucky coach John Calipari and assistant Orlando Antigua will be in Wichita for an in-home visit with 6-9 senior Perry Ellis, a top 30 prospect who has narrowed his college choices to Kansas, Kansas State, Wichita State and Kentucky. Ellis has not set any official visits, partially because he has already made unofficial visits to all four schools left on his list, reports Larry Vaught of the Danville Advocate-Messenger.
• When it comes to the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry, defensive lineman Luke McDermott isn’t choosy. He was willing to cast his football lot on either side of this intense in-state dividing line, writes Jerry Tipton of the Herald-Leader. McDermott first tried to walk on at U of L before coming to UK.

Continue reading ‘BBL: Calipari to visit Ellis as UK-U of L is around corner’

(AP photo)

Hop over to our friends at Card Chronicle, which was on hand for the Charlie Strong press conference today previewing Saturday’s Kentucky-Louisville tug-of-war at Commonwealth Stadium.

Three highlights:

• On the loss to Florida International: “We’re just not a very good football team. The coaches didn’t coach very well and the players didn’t play very well.

• On Saturday: “I don’t know if we can beat Kentucky right now.”

• On what to fix: “The offensive line isn’t our problem. Our problem is the whole team. The whole team needs to play better.”

Click here to read the rest of Strong’s comments.

As the Miami Herald reports, the NCAA student-athlete reinstatement staff has ruled that eight University of Miami football players must sit out games and repay benefits to regain eligibility.

According to the story, “of the eight, three received substantial benefits as recruits from former booster Nevin Shapiro and athletics personnel to entice them to enroll at UM, which are considered some of the most serious recruiting violations within the NCAA.”

Continue reading ‘Could Miami’s “athletic personnel” include Clint Hurtt?’

Mike Rutheford of the Card Chronicle blog has peered into his crystal ball and mapped out a 6-6 record for the Louisville football team. He thinks Charlie Strong’s second club will go 3-4 in the Big East.

And Mike has been just one game off, either way, in each of the last three Cardinal seasons.

But which team does he think will win the Governor’s Cup?

His prediction is short and (for one side) sweet.

The Big Lead does a good job summarizing the twitter rant ex-convict and street agent Ken Caldwell went on Wednesday against the University of Louisville and its embattled recruiting coordinator Clint Hurtt.

You remember Hurtt as one of the former Miami assistants implicated in the Yahoo Sports expose last week.

The NCAA has informed Louisville that it wishes to speak with Hurtt.