At some point, the towel has to be thrown in.
Maybe it’s not a full-blown admittance of failure, but when the fight is over the best know when to save their kid from complete embarrassment.
On Sept. 5, UK head coach Rich Brooks made a bold statement about his junior quarterback, Mike Hartline, calling him a quarterback that can win games. Hartline can win games against teams that are in the bottom third of the Football Bowl Subdivision.
But against the Southeastern Conference, Hartline is the equivalent of a featherweight fighting Joe Frazier — someone is going to get knocked out and it’s not going to be pretty.
After looking like an improved quarterback against Miami of Ohio, Hartline has regressed in every game since. He threw one pick against Louisville, two against Florida (throwing for under 100 yards in a game UK trailed the entire way) and coughed up three picks against Alabama on Saturday.
“At quarterback, the thing about them is you have four or five bad plays and you played terrible,†UK head coach of the offense Joker Phillips said. “(Hartline) will be judged as playing bad because of four or five plays.â€
But Hartline did play poorly. Every pick Hartline threw was at midfield or in UK territory, killing a UK drive or setting the Tide up with good field position.
In his postgame press conference, Brooks said turnovers and mistakes cost the Cats an upset win. UK had four turnovers. Three belonged to Hartline.
“Take out even half the turnovers and we’re right there,†Hartline said after the game.
OK, Mike, we’ll take out Locke’s fumble and the ensuing Alabama touchdown. We’ll knock you down to two interceptions. Seeing as how the Cats stalled multiple times offensively, even when they started many drives at midfield, we can’t guarantee the same wouldn’t have happened instead of one of your interceptions. Taking two turnovers away, the Cats still lost by double digits.
Yes, Hartline faced the No. 1 and No. 3 ranked teams on back-to-back Saturdays. They might even be the No. 1 and No. 3-ranked defenses by the end of the year. But the fact remains that if UK hopes to move beyond mediocre 6-6 seasons, Hartline will have to perform against those types of defenses.
“(Hartline) didn’t play as well as I liked,†Brooks said. “But he’s our best option so we’ll go forward with him.â€
The SEC may not be the land of quarterbacks, but surely one that plays as bad as Hartline can’t be any team’s best option.
If Hartline is UK’s best option, then the Cats don’t have much hope offensively. A good quarterback can lead a mediocre offense to victories. A mediocre quarterback won’t be able to seal any victories; no matter what receivers he has to throw to.
That means it’s time to mix things up. Maybe Hartline can beat all the nonconference schools UK plays, but there are no signs of him overcoming an SEC defense. UK has made many changes over the years, with the thoughts being on the future once Brooks leaves. After three awful games, it’s time to think of the future when it comes to quarterback.
It’s typical for a highly- touted freshman quarterback to play sparingly in order to expedite the learning process. UK has two such quarterbacks. It’s time for Brooks and Phillips to decide which one to redshirt and which one to play. They should play that quarterback in the second and third quarters and see if he can move the ball and limit mistakes.
The other option — “the best†— is to stick with Hartline and hope he doesn’t kill crucial drives that could swing a game. So far, he’s 0-for-2 this season in that department.
With the next two games at South Carolina and at Auburn, the chances of Hartline going 0-for-4 is highly likely.
Maybe Morgan Newton and Ryan Mossakowski won’t be able to turn things around this season. But trying them out in games is truly UK’s best option. Letting Mike Hartline continue to struggle in SEC play isn’t.
Kenny Colston is a journalism senior. E-mail kcolston@kykernel.com.
Why does the Kernel’s Editor in Chief feel compelled to be a beat sports reporter rather than the voice for all issues that are actually important?
What makes you an expert on college level sports? Stick to what you know.
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While I agree with you Jerry, please strive to have other hobbies besides eating, sleeping, drinking and crapping football. It makes you look like an obnoxious person if thats ALL you do in your free time. Trust me I know.
So, you deleted my comments. Is that how you handle a dissenting opinion? Aside from the fact that you hold the delete button, there is absolutely no difference between me expressing my opinion of your work and you expressing your opinion of the work of Mike Hartline and our coaching staff. It’s a shame we don’t have the delete button.
Once again, you show a real lack of character.
Needed to be said in a very public way. Thanks.
It’s refreshing to read genuine negative criticism instead of rose-colored fluff about how close we came to winning – ”the breaks just didn’t go our way; we played with such heart,” – no matter who writes it. We got our butts handed to us … no other way to say it. Face it, we are football losers.
If we don’t have the talent to win, let’s accept it and wait for basketball, and stop whining when we can’t measure up to the Floridas and Alabamas in football.
Getting the talent is the trick.
It is amazing to me how so many “never-played-football-in-their-life” self proclaimed experts can define the problem so easily about the less than stellar play of the Kentucky Wildcat Football Team. Easy to blame the quarterback as he is the captain of the ship, but there was alot more to the story than meets the eye. How about slippery hands, lack of play call knowledge and minimal pass coverage to just name a few. Or how about the possibility our coaches are living back in the stoneage and need to move forward in their time capsule with their coaching approach and game preparedness? How about the mere fact that Alabama is probably the best football team in the country at this time and Florida is on their heels? Give these kids a break and especially Mike Hartline. He is a young man who is shouldering a lot right now, maybe a little support would go a long ways instead of bashing him continually. Kudos to Brooks who is standing by his QB and is probably a little more realistic than most of the fans about the capabilities of this KY team to play against most of the SEC.
Here I am again. Ancient UK alumni (Class of 1968) and have never played football. However, I have lived with the entire UK varsity football team as Head Resident Advisor of Kirwan 3 in the complex. I socialized with them occasionally (not good, but it happened) and I went to every game even though we lost nearly all of them.
Also, at my age I consider myself a pretty good judge of human behavior. So, when I watch a football game I often turn off the sound because I don’t want to hear someone tell me what I am seeing. Well, I see Mike Hartline as a decent quarterback when there is no pressure. When there is pressure all bets are off.
If Joker Phillips wants to be an SEC head coach someday, he has to get it into his own head that faith alone is not enough. He has to start mixing it up at QB. He has two freshmen. One is recovering from an injury. He should be redshirted. Morgan Newton should start getting some minutes as soon a we hit Columbia, South Carolina.
I have seen lots of film on this kid and what he has that Hartline doesn’t, is the ability to think on his feet. And he uses his feet well.
I saw several plays against Alabama and Florida where a QB like Newton–regardless of his status–could have escaped the defense and either gained yards or kept from losing them. So, Coach Brooks and Coach Phillips if you want to go to another bowl you had better change your opinion regarding the QB position.
FINALLY! Someone tells it like it is! Thank you, Kenny, for being man enough to write a column that we all have wanted to hear for so long!
Thank you Kenny for saying what needed to be said. Kentucky does have the talent to win as they stood toe to toe with Alabama for pretty much the whole first half. The only thing lacking from the team is a reliable quarterback. Two of Hartline’s interceptions were a couple of the worst I have ever seen and completely turned the tide of the game. These were freshman mistakes by a junior who has started close to 14 games. When the pressure was on and the game was close his passes were off and his decision making was horrible. A 1 yard crossing pattern on 3rd and 7 will not get the job done. I’m sick of hearing excuses from the coaching staff on how the defense was just really good. If UK wants to be a contender in the SEC they will be facing tough defenses week in and week out, and Mike Hartline is not the QB to lead this team. If UK is happy with going 7-5 and 2-5 in the SEC and just making it to a bowl, then Hartline is their man.