Uncanny the things that have bedeviled football at University of Kentucky since Bear Bryant said “… been good to know ya,” and left for Texas A&M in 1953.

√ At SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, instead of emphasis on one of those high ranked recruiting classes coming on line, optimism for eight home dates, UK coach Mark Stoops’ remarks were an echo-across-six-decades.

“… making Kentucky football relevant again,” … “we understand the expectations. We’re doin’ the best we can.”

Same words out of the mouths of John Ray … Fran Curci … Bill Curry … Hal Mumme … Joker Phillips.

Doing his best to sing the virtues of fan base and facilities, Stoops moved a headline writer at the Atlanta Constitution to scorch Big Blue Nation with: Idle interest in Kentucky football.

Idle interest?

√ UK administrators trying to sell tickets, picked SEC Media Days to announce ticket distribution plans for Big Blue Madness.

√ Offensive tackle Jordan Swindle refused to bite on UK-is-a-Basketball School, but discussed instead how to solve a Rubik’s Cube in two minutes.

√ Defensive back A.J. Stamps: “six games is all we’ve gotta get. I don’t care which six they are.”

√ Television. ESPN bowl projections for SEC teams does not include UK, but the network says pivot games against Mississippi State (Starkville, October 24) and Tennessee (Lexington, October 31) could change things.

√ At the end, the media crowd applied the customary bedevilment. Citing UK history – no winning season since 2009, none in SEC play since 1977 – it voted Kentucky where it always does, behind all but Vanderbilt.

√ Is Kentucky’s goal The Mendoza Line? Break even?

STAMPS REMARK INTRIGUES

Six wins is the goal? In context of progress under Stoops, is this player’s prediction a reflection of where UK football still is? Trying to get to a Mendoza Line?

With eight home games and a ticket office needing all the hype it can get, Stamps might have been better prepped, apply a little bravado – “… our goal is to run the table, boys and girls. Period.”

Wildcat fans still deciding on a ticket package or not, looks to me like time to cowboy up.

√ It’s Year III. Who and how many high rated recruits coming out of red shirts are SEC-ready?

√ Instead of promoting arrangements for Big Blue Madness, UK officials ought to concentrate on wooing fans to invest in eight home games.

CHANGE BEFORE OUR EYES!

Funny, in a dark humor sort of way how …

A year ago, five or a decade or two, the media can magically change definition before our eyes of images we see.

√ Steve Spurrier. Originally, the Ol’ Ball Coach title was not one of endearment. Spurrier was an arch-villain for fans who seethed when his Florida teams ran up scores on Kentucky.

Spurrier turned 70 last April. A senior citizen, he is now praised for being opposite of bland. At a podium The Ol’ Ball Coach is fun and funny and media “wants him around.”

Before our very eyes, The Ol’ Ball coach re-invented.

√ The flag. The Southeastern Conference, with its symbols of segregation on buildings, statues and college campuses dating to 1933, what SEC media-type paused to think about, ask about, pontificate about or crusade against the Confederate flag?

Answer: Nobody. Too far left of political correctness and job jeopardy.

This summer’s SEC Media days, coaches were prodded to preach a little. None did, but an hilarious response to the flag flap came from Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen.

“I don’t see it very often,” he said. “We don’t have it on our campus. I do know we’re the most diverse campus in the Southeastern Conference. I know the university embraces that diversity as a whole. I certainly embrace that diversity. We’re so diverse, they have a Yankee as the head football coach in the Southeastern Conference.”

Mullen was born in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania and grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire.

HOOPS RECRUITING

July is still college basketball’s Third Season. Recruiting.

√ Owensboro Apollo hasn’t had a prospect-in-demand like Eli Wright since Rex Chapman (1986). The 6-4 guard added UConn to a who’s-who list of D-I programs offering scholarships. Clemson, Indiana, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Tennessee and Western Kentucky want Wright.

“If I go to prep school, then I’m probably going to commit in November,” Wright told The Daily News in Bowling Green. “If I don’t, I’m going to wait it out.”

Footnote: Brings to mind Quentin Goodin, Taylor County High’s Mr. Basketball candidate, who has offers from Michigan, Xavier, Miami, Florida and Western Kentucky.

Consider: A Cook-and-Wright combo at Western Kentucky would be a public relations coup and mega-boost to Hilltopper basketball and bring to mind happy days when an all-Kentucky starting lineup vaulted WKU to a Final Four, 1971.

√ Dennis Smith Junior, five-star shooting guard in Fayette, North Carolina said Kentucky had joined Louisville, North Carolina State and Wake Forest, offering him a scholarship.

One of Smith’s friends is just as intriguing. With offers from Duke, Kansas, Baylor and said to be leaning to South Carolina, is 6-1 170-pound playmaker in Columbia, South Carolina

Seventh Woods.

LEMME SEE HERE DEPT.

That’s $500,000-a-week … $2 million-plus a month … $24.1 million a year for six.

Ex-UK star Anthony Davis’s five year extension with New Orleans Pelicans starts next year and extends through his 28th birthday (March 11, 2021), $145 million.

“Anthony is a great person, a phenomenal player and the ideal representative of his family, the Pelicans and the New Orleans community,” Pelicans General Manager Dell Demps told ESPN.

Maybe, Davis won’t be affected, like say, Tiger Woods.

And so it goes.

You can reach me at bob.Watkins24@aol.com