Thursday, bloody Thursday

"No revolution is worth anything unless it can defend itself! Some people will tell you “wildcat” is a bad word. They’ll conjure up images of overbearing fans from a basketball school. This is our duty to change their perception. I say, wildcats of the world, unite! We must never acquiesce, for it is together, together, that we prevail! We must never cede control of the motherland for it is… together that we prevail!" -Dwight Shrute via Will English A few quickies before I head off to Columbia: --Down here in Charleston, loyalties are nearly split between Carolina/Clempson fans. I've been "flossin" my UK merch all week and have recieved an outpouring of support from the Tiger faithful. I guess if you can't beat em, join em. Gamecock fans on the other hand, well, they're pretty much united in the belief that Smelley is the next Danny Weurful and Kentucky is still Kentucky. Hell, even the smattering of Tennessee denizens around these parts have pledged allegience to the blue n' white this week. --With the sexy rankings in tow and the gleam of the Thursday night spotlight, it seems as if everyone who's anyone is weighing in on this game. Herbsreit. Tirico. Beano Cook's propped up corpse. Hal Mumme?: "Kentucky's a great place and they've got great fans," said Mumme, who's now the coach at New Mexico State. "I always thought every six to eight years, you could be good enough to challenge in the SEC and could probably go to a bowl game once every three or four years. I thought that was about as good as you could do." On the intricacies of bringing top talent to the Bluegrass: "There aren't a lot of good players in Kentucky," Mumme said. "You've got to try to get those top guys and everybody else wants them, too. The best players in the state get recruited by everybody: the Big Ten schools, Notre Dame and Louisville. So you've got to go elsewhere to find players. When you go down to Georgia, Florida or Alabama to get players, those kids are driving by a bunch of SEC schools to come to your place. You really have to convince them you're going to do something different." "And nothing says 'something different' like a 3 x 5 ft. check made out to cash," Mumme might've added. --ESPN's First Take, where we all go to get our 8 hour fix of Skip Bayless, welcomed the editors of both schools' campus newspapers for some forced diatribe. All in all, I'd say the Gamecock dude, who in the spirit of the season resembles a jack-o-lantern, was served a heaping dose of figgy puddin. --It has been raining all morning here, and the forecast calls for a fiddy/fiddy chance of gametime showers at Kickoff. Some see this as advantageous to the Cocks and their bruising backfield. But eventually, someone's going to have to air it out, and would you rather have H3isman throwing a wet ball, or inexperienced RS Freshman? And as any football pundit will tell you, the reciever always has the upper-hand over a DB on a wet field. --This much is true: Spurrier will deploy some trickery tonight. He hasn't shown much yet this season, and I don't recall ever seeing a Ball Coached team not pull a rabbit out of the visor against the Cats. And I don't recall ever seeing said trick play, fail. A-hole? Yes. Idiot? No. Spurrier knows Kentucky can match his club blow for blow, and undoubtedly sees the upper-hand on special teams. Also, don't forget (as Rob Gidel and myself discussed yesterday), stud WR Kenny McKinley was a decorated high school QB (as he showed in throwing the game-winning TD pass in Lexington last year), and you know OBC remembers how much we struggled to stop Slyvelle Newton last season on the QB draw. I'm just sayin... --While I fully expect this mentally tough bunch of Cayts to find a way to win this evening, keep that rationale handy; UK is walking into a hornet's nest tonight, facing a pretty darn good ball club coached by a pretty dominant ball coach. A win would be the sweetest sight these eyes have ever seen and it'd produce a Final Four type atmosphere in Lexington, but winning in Columbia is a more arduous task than beating Florida at home. --I'll try to get some good shots of the talent both on and off the field, rain willing. I'm already a high-ball deep, and you should be too. Unless you work in a hospital, or a school. Cats 27 Cocks 26 Go Blue