Louisville game can indicate success of season

If you’re looking to predict how the rest of any given UK football season will play out,  use the Louisville game as a landmark.

In the past couple of years, it’s proven to be pretty accurate.

In 2007, UK’s 40-34 upset of then-No. 9 UofL (UK head coach Rich Brooks’ first win over a top-10 opponent at UK) sparked UK’s second in a run of three consecutive bowl-winning seasons. The high-scoring game set the mood for the rest of UK’s season.

Andre Woodson broke passing records. With Keenan Burton, Steve Johnson and Jacob Tamme as targets, who wouldn’t? For a while, Woodson pulled some Heisman hype as well.

Although the Cats had some nice defensive players, 2007 was about offense. UK scored 40 or more points in eight of its 13 games, including a 52-50 loss to Tennessee.

Just like 2007 was about offense, 2008 was about defense, and it started with the Louisville game. UK’s defense scored two touchdowns — one of which was defensive tackle Myron Pryor’s memorable 72-yard rumble — and the Cats won easily, 27-2.

All season long, the Cats’ defense is what drove them to the Liberty Bowl. Sure, Randall Cobb was exciting to watch, but Pryor, Trevard Lindley, Jeremy Jarmon and Micah Johnson played well enough to give a little slack to the young, often overmatched offense.

Compared to its eight 40-point efforts in 2007, UK broke 40 once in 2008, and that was against Western Kentucky.

Why is it that UK’s season has played out in mini-form against Louisville the past few years?

The rivalry surely has something to do with it. Emotions run high, and players come to play no matter what. Players undoubtedly get fired up for every game, but in any rivalry game, emotion and adrenaline get turned up even higher.

“It’s a rivalry game, so everyone knows that it’s a big game, but you have to take it as that because you want to win,” Johnson said. “Everything that comes with it is a little more for the fans and it is exciting, so we want to win it for them.”

Said junior offensive lineman Stuart Hines: “It’s a rivalry game, so there will be a lot of intensity and emotion. A lot of people have a lot of motivation for this game and we have a lot of people from Louisville, so it’s a big game. This game means a lot to people across the state.”

So how should fans expect Saturday’s game to play out and ultimately predict a trend for the rest of UK’s season?

The Cats will make or break the game (and their season) on defense. The offense will put up plenty of points — not quite as many as 2007’s team, but quite a few still.

More specifically, the Cats’ defense will rely on the pass rush. In years past, the pass rush has been well above average.

But players have left, one key player (Jarmon) unexpectedly. At least in UK’s season opener against Miami of Ohio, it was clear there were still holes to fill.

“With the lack of experience we have at that position going into the first game it’s a little bit understandable why we didn’t see the types of things that I had hoped to see,” Brooks said. “I expect to see a lot more of them going forward and certainly the road will get tougher this week, and it gets tougher even going forward from this.”

If UK’s pass rush can force Louisville quarterback Justin Burke (a Lexington Catholic graduate) to make bad throws, the secondary (read: Lindley) has the ability to force turnovers and score points.

But if UK’s pass rush can’t get in Burke’s head, the game may as well be a coin flip, even though UK was listed as a 13.5-point favorite as of Tuesday afternoon.

In a rivalry game like this — especially one played in his hometown — Burke will capitalize on any opportunity his offensive line allows him.

If UK’s pass rush doesn’t step up, the Cats are in for a long day Saturday.

And if we learn from the past, that means a long season, too.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail James at jpennington@kykernel.com.