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KSR Today: Full slate of college football games; Barnhart on radio

Zack Geogheganby: Zack Geoghegan09/02/21ZGeogheganKSR
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(Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Good morning, folks! The wait is officially over… We’ve got college football for the next four months.

Season-opening games have been played sporadically over the last week, but today marks the first day of a full schedule. There will be 16 FBS games later tonight, including four ranked programs in action. The highlight of the slate of games will come at 8:00 p.m. EST on FOX when No. 4 Ohio State takes on Minnesota.

ESPN

Today also marks the two-day point until your Kentucky Wildcats grace the field for the 2021 season in the opener against UL-Monroe. Mark Stoops will speak with the media this afternoon and we’ll have everything he says on the site as soon as we can.

Let’s get into the other news and notes you need to know.

Updates on Shaedon Sharpe/Cason Wallace

Two of John Calipari’s biggest recruiting targets made some noise on Wednesday.

Shaedon Sharpe, who is now ranked No. 1 in the class of 2022 by three different major media outlets, set his commitment date for Sept. 7 at 7:00 p.m. EST. This news comes on the heels of his second surprise visit to Lexington earlier in the week. The 6-foot-4 shooting guard is down to Kentucky, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma State, and the NBA’s G League Ignite program.

Another five-star guard from the class, Cason Wallace, updated his top list of preferred schools. The 6-foot-4 combo guard is a top-10 prospect in his class and arguably the best two-way player out of all of them. Wallace was previously down to just Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas, but added UTSA to the mix on Wednesday. His commitment date is scheduled for Nov. 7, although a decision could come before then. He was also in Lexington over the weekend.

Terry Bowden is not very optimistic

UL-Monroe head coach Terry Bowden certainly is no stranger to the college football scene, and he provided some incredibly candid quotes before his team’s matchup against Kentucky on Saturday.

Knowing his squad is going to be completely overwhelmed by the talent of an SEC program along with the fact that ULM went 0-10 last season, Bowden has already waved the white flag. He just wants to make it to week two as healthy as possible.

“If you’re trying to ease into your season, ease into your schedule, or your new job, this is not the game that you would want,” Bowden told the media on Tuesday. “This is not the Kentucky of old.

“They’ve got great expectations and they’re a very, very good football team. If you wonder the difference in the talent level, last year they had six players drafted in the NFL, three players free agents. You might as well be talking Auburn, you might as well be talking Florida when you talk about those kind of people being drafted in the NFL.”

That’s some pretty high praise for the ‘Cats, even if ULM is not good right now. Bowden went on to say that ULM is going to need a good amount of luck to even have a chance.

“We have prepared ourselves to go up there and play the best we can play,” Bowden said. “That’s all we can do. You go up there and all your preparation is to win a football game, but we know when we go into a game like this that they’re going to have to help us a little bit in that first game for things to work out our way.

“But I do know if we don’t get anybody hurt in this game and we can keep from getting hurt, we got a good chance the second week against B-Y-E which is one of those teams we already play pretty well against.”

Pin It Deep Ep. 2

Former Kentucky Football specialists Max Duffy and Miles Butler have one of the hottest podcasts in all of podcasting, and their newest episode just went live.

Episode 2 of the new “Pin It Deep” podcast is available online for your listening pleasure with stories of Week 1 rituals and memories, the lack of respect for Miles, turf mishaps, and more.

True Blue Customs bringing the HEAT

Will Levis, Josh Ali, Carrington Valentine, and Wan’Dale Robinson are going to be rocking some HEAT on Saturday thanks to the fine folks over at True Blue Customs.

Hear from the defense

On Wednesday, members of the Kentucky defense spoke to the media ahead of the season-opener. Defensive coordinator Brad White, defensive tackle Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald, and cornerback Carrington Valentine all gave their thoughts.

Nick Roush has you covered on all three, but in the meantime, you can hear from Coach White below.

That’s all I’ve got for you all. We’ve got radio in an hour and it’s going to be a special one. Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart will make an appearance at 11:00 a.m. EST. We’ll see you then.

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2025-08-03