With Kentucky football sitting 2-4 coming off a bye week, with four games remaining, including two at the home stadiums of the SEC division leaders, there is the temptation to start playing for the future.
It says here: Don't do it.
Don't punt on the season. Especially not this season. Not when your players, especially your older players, have put so much time into the grind, making the sacrifices involved with playing football during a global pandemic. The protocols. The constant testing. The necessary restrictions to reduce possible exposure to those who might be carrying COVID-19. Even with all that, not a single Kentucky player has opted out of this 2020 season. Not one.
Besides, the season isn't a lost cause. Far from it. To be sure, 2-4 is not where the Cats hoped to be heading into Saturday's game against visiting Vanderbilt. (Provided there is a game Saturday. Masks on, fingers crossed.) A missed extra point decided their overtime home loss to Ole Miss. Following a big road victory at Tennessee, they arrived flat as a pancake for a loss at Missouri. This 2-4 UK football team could easily be 4-2. Should be 4-2.
It is not, of course. As Bill Parcells famously said, you are what your record says you are. Mark Stoops' troops are two games under .500 with Vanderbilt (home), Alabama (road), Florida (road) and South Carolina (home) remaining in this 10-game, all-conference, long, hard road of a season.
Vanderbilt is 0-5 but coming off its best game of the season, falling 24-17 at Mississippi State after trailing 17-0 at the half. Alabama is Alabama. Florida has trophy case space cleared for its SEC East hardware after last week's 44-28 thumping of Georgia. At 2-4, South Carolina is hearing oral arguments over whether Coach Will Muschamp deserves another shot at turning the Gamecocks around.
The Cats are 17-point favorites over Vanderbilt. A similar spread may await when South Carolina comes to town Dec. 5. On the flip side, the Cats figure to be heavy underdogs at both Tuscaloosa (Nov. 21) and Gainesville (Nov. 28). Running the table for a November to remember is probably beyond this team's capabilities.
Still, there's hope. A loss to Florida isn't inevitable. The Cats have gone toe-to-toe with the Gators each of last three years, losing 28-27 at home in 2017 before snapping the Gators 31-game series win streak with a momentous 27-16 win at The Swamp in 2018. Last season, UK led 21-10 only to lose 29-21 at Kroger Field. A Kentucky upset of Florida this year isn't probable, but it isn't impossible, either.
Hope is not a strategy, of course. UK must first find a way to fix its offense. Subbing for offensive coordinator Eddie Gran in Tuesday's video call with the media, quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw reported the offense had just completed possibly its best practices of the season. After missing the Georgia game with a wrist injury, quarterback Terry Wilson is back. The bye afforded the coaches a self-scouting opportunity and the players a much-needed break. We'll see what all that produces.
Bottom line, this football program needs a strong finish. After four consecutive bowl appearances, and a 16-16 SEC record over that span, the Cats don't need to take a step back. They don't need to open themselves up to the trolls and critics who will claim Kentucky football just couldn't handle a 10-game conference season — even in this unusual season — a knock that might echo on the recruiting trails.
Time to focus on the here and now. Kentucky's final record may not matter as much as how the team finishes. And to finish at its best, UK needs to play its best players, concentrate its best efforts on what's left of 2020, not what's coming in 2021. The future can wait.
