Talking Season.

Fan and expert buzz four Saturdays out from season chasing Ohio State and Alabama.

Referencing records past, projections forward and expectations (real and imagined) for 2015, the new Bluegrass pecking order for D-Is is: 1. Louisville, 2. Western Kentucky, 3. Kentucky.

With this caveat to stir the stew – by 11 O’clock News September 5 fans and experts in the Bluegrass State won’t be shocked if the aggregate record is 3-0 OR 0-3.

Talking Season. When UK football fans are asked: Which game on the schedule are you looking forward to most? Two precursors ought be made clear. First, around the Southeastern Conference correct pronunciation for football schedule is, sked-jewel. South of line at Jellico, word football isn’t required. Everyone knows. Say it aloud. Sked-jewel.

Second, the dumb question ‘which game you are most looking forward to?’ requires you demonstrate to friends that you’ve been paying attention the last 20 years, Louisville, Tennessee or Auburn is not the right answer. Correct answer is the next one! In this case, Louisiana Lafayette.

Talking season. Simple, direct and perfect for August.

Day before the violence starts, coaches and players basked in warmth of attention and questions from media herd to which coaches and players tried to stay on script (platitudes) a lot, and say nothing remotely bravado.

After the battalion-sized horde of reporters left from Talking Season duty and a hot air plume rose above Commonwealth Stadium heights, a lone scenario of journalistic eloquence qualified for Worth Repeating Department.

Involved Jon Toth (pronounced Toe-th), an academic All-SEC center.

Quarterback-turned-rookie-reporter Freddie Maggard (1989-91), working for Kentucky Sports Radio, did not make hot pursuit after glamour boy Patrick Towles or Drew Barker, but sought out an offensive lineman, a snapper.

Toth, projected as the SEC’s premier center during Talking Season, is a 6-feet-5, 310-pound fellow who says he wants to be famous.

“Jon is a serious soul,” Maggard wrote. “That makes him a perfect leader of a young offensive line group. I’ve talked extremely high when referencing (Toth). Today confirmed my hunch. His health and durability will play a large role in UK’s journey to bowl eligibility.”

Eureka. The Toth Gem. Best of the Talking Season by a mile. Size, experience, talent, leadership ability and serious. A standard in words for a team aiming for a bowl bid season.

For fans, here are qualities to stir optimism; for Toth, a little media love; and overall, simple, direct and perfect for what comes after Talking Season.

CIRCLE TALK DEPT.

At media day UK director of athletics Mitch Barnhart’s state of the Commonwealth (stadium) address was first class circle talk.

On new seating at Commonwealth Stadium, “… we have grown our season and student tickets. We aren’t done on those numbers yet. I haven’t seen them lately, but we have surpassed clearly where we were last year and move into some of the numbers we are used to seeing when we are in that 40,000 range. The capacity of the stadium is going to be in that 61,000 range as we get the final seat count.”

Translations:

√ AD shows up at media day and “has not seen the (numbers) lately.” Hmmm?

√ AD says Commonwealth Stadium will be “in that 61,000 range as we get a final seat count.”

Commonwealth’s seating capacity officially is 67,606. Given some fans are not happy with seating changes, one could surmise Barnhart’s numbers is circle talk aimed at lowering ticket sales expectations.

PELPHREY STAR CROSSED?

Star-crossed, a handful of sports personalities I’ve chanced to write about over four-plus decades. Men who seemed simply destined for success no matter what obstacles, misfortune or setback.

There are those in life who rise to pedestals by way of uncanny right-place-right-time good decision-making, because, it’s simply in the cards.

On my list …

√ Bill Evans (Berea to UK, Olympic Games gold, Kentucky state tennis champion, and KFC).

√ Paul Hornung (Flaget star, Heisman Trophy winner, and Vince Lombardi’s Golden Boy, Hall of Fame).

√ Darrell Griffith at Louisville (Mr. Basketball 1976, state title, NCAA title, All-NBA, Hall of Fame).

√ Frank Ramsey (Madisonville to UK, NBA’s original 6th Man, Hall of Fame and banking).

Next wave of star-crossed candidates might include: John Pelphrey.

Mr. Basketball at Paintsville in 1987; captain among UK’s Unforgettables; labored for Hall of Famers Rick Pitino and Billy Donovan; head coach at two D-I universities and, some would argue, has been a coach since his junior year at Kentucky, 1991.

Let go last spring as assistant at Florida, Pelphrey is on sabbatical these days. But, come October 10, he will be in Louisville for a (what else?) coaching clinic.

For coaches across the Commonwealth opportunity knocks. Pelphrey will “break down a different part of the game in five 50-minute segments.”

Place: Louisville Iroquois High School, 9 o’clock to 1:30 pm, eastern time.

Interested? Contact Iroquois head coach Jeff Morrow.

LOUISVILLE & POLL

A too-early (and too stupid) college basketball poll was all the rage in Kentuckiana last week.

Reasons? Kentucky was ranked number three, Louisville was listed nowhere.

Kentuckians who believe a Rick Pitino team, with nine games in Puerto Rico to prepare for Talking Season then regular season, will not have a Top 25 team, write and explain it to me, please.

And so it goes.

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