LEXINGTON, Ky. _ If Mark Stoops is seeking bulletin-board material to inspire the Kentucky Wildcats for the 2019 football season, the UK head coach need only exercise a Google search to find plenty of disrespect directed toward the Cats.
In the national media, skepticism abounds that UK, having lost difference-making stars Josh Allen and Benny Snell from a year ago, can sustain the positive momentum from last season's 10-3 breakthrough.
Eric Sorenson of Athlon Sports projects that Arkansas _ 2-10 a season ago, outscored 319-138 while losing all eight of its SEC games _ will beat Kentucky in Lexington in 2019.
USA Today's Paul Myerburg ranked Kentucky as the 52nd best college football team in the country in 2019 _ four spots behind UK's season-opening foe, Toledo, of the Mid-American Conference.
If Stoops and troops are going to defy such predictions of gloom, the foe that must first be vanquished is Kentucky's own football history.
Since Bear Bryant exited stage right as UK head coach after the 1953 season, last year was only the fourth time a Kentucky football team won as many as nine games in one year.
The two most recent times before 2018 that UK hit the nine-win threshold _ Fran Curci's 10-1 team in 1977 and Jerry Claiborne's 9-3, Hall of Fame Bowl championship squad in 1984 _ the Wildcats "slipped back" into mediocrity in the ensuing season.
In 1978, UK began its season with an unexpected tie at South Carolina, never recovered, and limped home with a 4-6-1 mark.
Curci _ who had produced winning records in three of his first five seasons as Kentucky coach _ never had another one before getting fired in 1981.
In 1985, Kentucky was upset at home in its opener by MAC foe Bowling Green, never recovered, and suffered through a 5-6 campaign.
Claiborne _ who went to two bowl games in his first three seasons _ never made the postseason again before retiring after the 1989 season.
Starting with Saturday's high noon kickoff against Toledo, that is the Wildcats pigskin past the current Cats will attempt to alter. The Rockets (7-6 in 2018) enter 2019 having produced a winning record in nine straight seasons.
"It's good for us to play an opponent like Toledo because they're re a very good football program," Stoops said Monday at his initial weekly news conference of 2019 at Kroger Field. "They're used to winning football games."
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops talks about the Toledo Rockets, UK's opponent for the season opener on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2019, at Kroger Field. Toledo has been picked to win the West Division of the Mid-American Conference. By John Clay
There is an unusually wide variance of what is realistically possible for Kentucky in 2019.
A UK victory on a road trip to Georgia (Oct. 19) would be a stunner. In the other 11 games, Kentucky has at least a viable chance to win.
However, there are a whole lot of "go either way" games on the 2019 UK schedule.
Contests against some of the SEC East foes that Kentucky has dominated in recent years _ South Carolina (five straight Kentucky wins), Missouri (four straight) and Vanderbilt (four out of five) _ do not "set up" especially favorably this season.
Kentucky must travel to South Carolina (Sept. 28) on the back-end of a stretch of three straight SEC contests, the final two on the road (Kentucky is at Mississippi State on Sept. 21).
Missouri is on the UK schedule (Oct. 26) the week following Georgia. Under Stoops, Kentucky is 0-6 in games that immediately follow the Bulldogs.
UK also must travel to Vandy (Nov. 16). While Kentucky backers will likely outnumber Commodores fans in the stands at Vanderbilt Stadium, the home team in the UK-Vandy series has won five of the past six meetings.
To avoid the "air out of the balloon" phenomenon that befell the Kentucky program in its season openers in 1978 and 1985, the 2019 Cats need to first take care of business against Toledo.
"I tell our team often early in the year, we need to play aggressive, we need to play to win, but you can't beat anybody till you don't beat yourself," Stoops said. "I think if you watch some of the football that's played early, you see a lot of (teams beating themselves)."
In the big picture, those predicting a Kentucky return to mediocrity in 2019 are stipulating that, while Stoops built a stellar team last season, the long-term arc of the UK program essentially remains unchanged.
Conversely, any kind of a UK winning season in the coming year would support the idea that Stoops is altering the paradigm of what is possible for Wildcats football.
All of which makes the 2019 UK season shape up as wildly interesting.
