Linebacker DeAndre Square, right, and UK can prove SEC Network analysts wrong with their play this year. (UK Athletics Photo)
The hypocrisy of the SEC Network’s talking head crew — Greg McElroy, Takeo Spikes and Tim Tebow — during the coverage of SEC Media Days is pretty amazing.
On Wednesday afternoon they spent 15 minutes of air time talking about how Kentucky football is not the third best team in the SEC. They talked about UK’s easier schedule, their predictable run-oriented offense with Will Levis and Chris Rodriguez and how UK is a blue collar team that has been winning at a phenomenal clip the last four years.
But that’s just it. They all said as good as Kentucky football has been — winning 10 games two of the last four years — the Cats seemed to be able to do it because of a softer schedule.
Tebow said that he would put Arkansas (9-4 last season), LSU (a 6-7 team that UK pounded in Lexington last season) and Texas A&M (8-4) ahead of the Cats in the pecking order of the SEC. Tebow also said that he would select Tennessee as a team that is “right there” with UK and probably more dangerous in big games than Kentucky. He said that Georgia would be more afraid to play Tennessee than it would UK.
All three former players dismissed Kentucky as a throwback football team that plays hard but probably has the softest schedule in the SEC.
Now, here is the most hypocritical part. The panel then turned their attention to SEC quarterbacks. Previously in their picks of the top five quarterbacks in the SEC neither Tim Tebow, former Florida quarterback, nor Jordan Rogers, former Vanderbilt quarterback, included Georgia National Championship winning quarterback Stetson Bennett in their top five of the SEC.
Greg McElroy, former Alabama quarterback, then went on to berate the “media” — which I assume would include Tebow and Rogers — because they discounted Bennett as a quarterback. He said once a person gets past the notion that Bennett was originally a walk-on at Georgia his game speaks for itself. McElroy said that Bennett wasn’t respected as a great quarterback because he didn’t always physically look the part but he did the things, at a high level, that it takes to win. He also said that even though other quarterbacks in the SEC have more physical tools Bennett should be considered one of the top quarterbacks in the SEC.
Does all that sound familiar? On the one hand the three former SEC players on the panel disregarded Kentucky as the third best team in the SEC because in their opinion UK doesn’t have the talent (look the part) of other teams (see LSU, Texas A&M, Arkansas and even Tennessee) even though they have proven year after year that they can win at a high level in the SEC and can beat top notch teams from other conferences. Then they immediately start talking about Bennett and how he is disrespected as a quarterback even though he has proven the nay-sayers wrong by winning the biggest prize in college football — the National Championship. They said Bennett is only disrespected because he doesn’t come into the game with a great pedigree as a football player. In other words Bennett had no previous history of being a great high school player. Sound familiar?
Kentucky had no history of previously being a great football program so the thinking is they can’t be one now. It has to be because of the easy schedule.
It seems like for Kentucky Football and Bennett the media completely buys into the pre-conceived notion that neither one is top notch in college football so they then find reasons to discount their performances. In UK’s case it’s because they have a soft schedule; for Stetson Bennett it’s because he is surrounded by so many playmakers that all he has to do is manage the game.
Noted leadership author and speaker John Maxwell once said, “You see what you are prepared to see.” In both cases concerning UK Football and Bennett, the talking heads at the SEC Network have prepared themselves to see what they want to see and what they want to see is some reason, other than sheer ability, as the reason why both have been successful in college football over the last four years.
They believe that Bennett is still an average walk-on type player and Kentucky is still a team that can’t consistently win in the SEC — a perennial also-ran.
Time will tell if Tebow, Spikes and McElroy are correct in their assessment of UK winning because of a soft schedule or if Kentucky Football truly is winning games because they have improved talent, improved coaching and a will to win.
Mark Stoops and Kentucky Football have a prime opportunity this season to prove who they are in the SEC — contender or pretender — and they need to take this opportunity with 72 percent of their production back to show that the schedule is not the only reason they are winning games in the SEC.
7 Responses
I’ve always been a Tebow fan because of his personal integrity – BUT , that doesn’t mean he’s alway right !
Rubber meets the road early in the season in Gainesville ! Should we lose there’s still time to have a successful season but Lordy Lordy it IS A HUGE GAME.
For sure the middle of the SEC is a hard battle, thin line there in how you finish. The SEC is obviously a brutal conference. With that said, they showed up last season and gave Georgia fully as hard fought and physical game as virtually anyone else did in the SEC!
Kentucky should be proud of the growth, and it is not done growing!!
totally with you BlueBlueBoy
It don’t really matter what those people say. We all know UK still has much work to do with their football program, and this sort of banter should fire them up. Stoops and his team are being talked about now, that’s a good thing. My personal opinion is that some of these "know it all" experts are a little amazed at UK’s rise in SEC football under Stoops, and will not give them credit that is due. UK’s gridiron past haunts them.
The biggest problem UK has in convincing these so called experts they are for real resides in Knoxville, TN. It is worrisome that both the Florida game and the Tennessee game are road trips this year. UK has to find the grit and talent to dominate the Volunteers year in year out, at least win their fair share of those games. If that ever happens, they will win the east in time, and maybe the SEC championship. Also, UK recruiting is much better now, but it must get even better. Superior talent wins generally, just look at Georgia and Alabama. UK is becoming a football school slowly but surely. people don’t want to believe it.
Pup there is no doubt that Stoops and Marrow love the bulletin board material
This is the same thing that comes up every season, UK gets no respect.
The response is the same every year, UK will get respect when it earns it on the field over the course of time. When Stoops arrived, he faced a culture of a bottom dweller. That culture had a 50 year history and tradition. That culture permeated the program from the very top of the UKAA to the youngest fan.
It takes time to change that culture to one of a sustainable, SEC competitive program. I have believed since the start of Stoops’ transformation and culture building that the process would take a generation (about 20 years) and he is half way done. Stoops has made remarkable progress in this transformation, but his job is not finished. It is like climbing a learning curve, the first 1/2 is easy compared to the last 1/2 of the climb. Therefore, over the next 10 years, as fans we may not see the progress quite so clearly, but I am confident that Coach Stoops not only knows where he wants to lead the program, but has a road map and a schedule that he is using to measure his own progress.
I don’t care what Tim Tebow, or any of the "experts" have to say. All that matters is what Coach Stoops, his coaches, and his players accomplished over the long haul on the football field, and the last time I looked, his accomplishments make me very proud to be a UK football fan, and excited for UK football’s future.
Go Get ‘Em Coach!!!!
The way to win is to build teams that are better than opponents and there would be no need to second guess UK’s recent success in this manner. That is easier said than done, obviously. Otherwise, everyone would do it. So is winning 10 games in a season, regardless of the opponents.
I still think about the 1977 team. 10-1. It did stumble at Baylor in week 2 but look at this list of teams that fell to that UK team. 6 road games and 5 home games. Wins at Penn St., LSU, Georgia, and Florida all in the same season. Not a cupcake on the schedule. That team feared no one, and took on all comers, here, there, or anywhere.
I know that the landscape of football has changed and the 3 cupcake opponents are there for a reason, to provide financial support to another tier of college football that some believe would not survive without those games on their schedules. But build the team, and the wins will come. I do not fear a 9 game SEC schedule that many seem to do. Add another SEC game and drop the annual game against nobody. Add another Bye week to the schedule if the 12 games in 13 weeks are too strenuous for the players.
1977–Won 10, Lost 1
10 North Carolina 7 Lexington Sept 10
6 Baylor 21 Waco Sept 17
28 West Virginia 13 Lexington Sept 24
24 Penn State 20 Univ. Park Oct 1
23 Miss. State* 7 Lexington Oct 8
33 LSU* 13 Baton Rouge Oct 15
33 Georgia 0 Athens Oct 22
32 Virginia Tech* 0 Lexington Oct 29
28 Vanderbilt 6 Nashville Nov 5
14 Florida 7 Gainesville Nov 12
21 Tennessee 17 Lexington Nov 1