The House of Blue

This is a must win. No doubt about it.

It's a very winnable non conference game, so yes, it's a "must win".....just like Jacksonville St., WKU, and CMU were/are "must wins".

Certainly it's safe to say that this is a pivotal game for the Cats this season. Despite being 2-0, UK's total offensive ineptness the first game followed by a mediocre performance in the 2nd has folks a bit disenchanted and shall we say unenthused. UK needs not only a win but they also need an offensive performance that isn't "offensive". If you can't generate anything against the likes of WKU and perform inconsistenly against CMU, another spotty offensive performance doesn't bode well heading into the most brutal portion of the scheule. I won't even go into what a loss will do to the psyche of the team and fanbase.

I still like this team and think it has a better than even chance to have a good season. I think Newton is better than his stats have shown BUT he needs to step up and be the player everyone thought he would be when he first arrived on campus. I think the O-line needs to start playing like the "strength" of the team EVERYBODY was raving about in pre-season. Lastly, I think the receiving corps needs to act like a group that can actually catch a pass instead of playing hot potato with the football. Shore those things up today, and I think the enthusiasm for this years squad and the season picks up. Roll out that same ole, and the season is in jeopardy.

Yes. Cats have no margin for error if they have bowl aspirations this year. I have contended for years that the UL game is more of a must win for UK than it is for UL given UK's schedule in the SEC. If and when all of these 16 team conferences come to fruition and go to 9 or God forbid 10 game league schedules, I think playing the UL game in the future will be in jeopardy. In the expanded league, UK will not be able to play non-league games against teams they risk losing to.

I don't know about serious trouble. Everything goes out the window with rivalry games, but all good points.

For multiple reasons, yes.
1. Gotta win all non-conf games... can't afford to lose any of them ever for bowl reasons.
2. Gotta continue the "momentum" heading into conference play. A loss to a non-conf foe would signal to the SEC that we are especially down.
3. Gotta win every game against UL. That is the expectation. Multiple reasons here.
3a. In State Recruiting - we have to be able to "expect" to get the state's best talent (regardless of the depth available).
3b. Simple bragging rights - they are a rival. Nothing would turn boosters and fans faster than losing to the instate rival.

All good post in this thread! YES! this is a must win for many reasons. I like this game BUT I also believe that we have much more to lose then UL does. With our conference affiliation we cannot afford to lose any non-conf games, UL on the other hand has many more winnable game left on the schedule. We must WIN.

GO CATS!!!

I'd be forced to agree with previous poster that Joker got rid of some of the best teaching coaches we had in favor of recruiting coaches so no we're not going to beat anyone with our superior coaching other than we have a couple of good teaching coaches, but Joker will continue to call the shots in tough situations which is what will continue to kill us. In fact it may even drastically effect our recruiting look what happened last year with our top ranked recruits.

So yea if we can't beat UL I'm afraid 3 possibly 4 wins will kill this year and don't see any improvement next year.

We should try on 3-9 or 4-8 for size as that is where we are headed...