The House of Blue

When it comes to UK football, In don't expect a team that is going to compete with Alabama, LSU & Florida on an annual basis - I don't think the state produces enough of the 4 & 5-star talent and its very difficult to get those kind of kods out of theirhome states unless you have the solid tradition.

The way the UK schedule is right now, I do expect the program to win all three (non-UL) non-conference games on a yearly basis and I expect the to be at a level where they handle UL at least three out of every four years minimum - no excuse for the Cards ever being in better hape than us. I don't think its overly-optomisitc to expect us to dominate Vandy and be on a very competitive basis with schools like Ol Miss, Miss St, Missouri, TAMU and Arkansas and a lot closer to schools like Auburn, Georgia. So. Carolina and Tennessee than we currently are.

Other than Vandy, I don't think losing to an SEC school is something to necessarily be embarrassed about. More than actual W's & L's, I'm more conecerned withthe way the team takes the field. If I'm convinced that a teaqm is well-prepared, motivated has a solid game-plan and gives their best effort, but are just beat by a better team, I will never be as criticaql as I now am.

As things stand now though, I have no confidence that this coaching staff is capable of putting together a winning game plan and putting a prepared, motivated team on the field over the course of a full season. UK can not aoofrd to keep such a staff.

While I don't think it's realistic to expect a 10-2 or 11-1 record every year, I do think its quite doable for the right staff to win seven or eight games a season (nine in an "up" season) and three to four conference games minimum. I believe that even in an expecptional season, six or seven wins is about the ceiling for a Joker-led squad. Even then, I would expect at least three or four flat, unispired, mis-managed games per year.

Everyone should have high expectations for both Football and Basketball and nothing less IMO.

If those are you expectations then thats fine but with Joker as coach Im not sure that is even possiblr. You said that we cant recruit kids that are of the 4 or 5 star talent level I can agree with that if Joker stays but with the proper coach with very good name recognition can get their foot in the door of kids that arent from KY. I also expect the AD to make all of the football facilities on a competitive level with the rest of the SEC so once the coach has their foot in the door he can then praise the facilities of the program.

I don't think it's out of the question to expect improvement each year and 7-8 wins. But, that's just me.

I think you need to get a coach in here that can meet the expectations of win 7-9 games a season on a regular basis and then worry about winning the SEC title. I didn't say in my post that UK could never win the East or the SEC. Get them to the level where there winning 7-9 games a year and there could well be years where they can compete for the East and maybe even the conference. I just don't believe that UK will ever be a perrenial league favorite like Bama, LSU or Florida.

Good question Sleepydog. Perhaps a realistic view would be South Carolina. They have a better recruiting area in SC than we do but their program was fairly comparable to ours when they went coach shopping last time. They get Spurrior who is arguably one of the top 5 all time in the SEC. Year 6 they won 9 games for the first time and last year they improved on that. The point is it took him that long to turn the corner there and i dont know that if he left after this year it would sustain. The thing is, to turn this around here it could be 7-10 years in order to be competitive for league titles. And that's not consistently but every few years. That's as long as we have the right guy hired and he stays long enough.