Darkest corner in college football this side of (un)Happy Valley, Pennsylvania this week? Lexington, Kentucky.

Much as Rich Brooks was a Crucify Him! target near the end of his second season at Kentucky in 2004, Joker Phillips is hearing the mean howls from that constituency in Big Blue Nation, Bill Curry called Fellowship of the Miserable. This week, the cacophony is louder, longer and makes Phillips’ job pushing the boulder up the hill, harder.

Being reasonable and having patience are qualities fans hereabouts assign to sissys in football’s smash mouth south. Winning is the only thing in a place where fans poison trees, daddys auction players, boosters pay off stars and buy a few also.

The bar set thusly, and considering a 38-8 thumping administered by Vanderbilt last week, Joker Phillips and his coaches deserve the howl and hiss given the Wildcats showed up in Nashville on time, but left their hearts back in Lexington.

Uninspired, unenthusiastic Kentucky was stuffed by halftime, 24-0 by a football program apparently in beautiful-to-watch Black and Gold renaissance. Vanderbilt. Wildcat fans witnessed what they long to see at Commonwealth – a born-again Commodore team that has undergone an attitude transplant.

First year coach James Franklin, who will face his own angry Fellowship of the Miserable sooner or later, has willed his players to believe they can compete in Smash Mouth Land. The ‘Dores play at the edges of legal violence risking yellow flags for personal foul, holding and false start no-no’s, but they score points in the heads of opponents. Kentucky was easy prey. The Wildcats showed up ill-prepared and ripe for personal fouls, false starts, awful execution, an ugly score. Surrender.

What next for UK football? These ideas …

• Players. A collective soul search; a lobotomy-level attitude adjustment; and never mind Calipari’s team! And, never ever whine about fan support. Finally, with knuckle-head penalties in mind, as Sheriff Andy Taylor told his kid once, “act like somebody.”

Coaches? A collective soul search. While Franklin at Vandy, Charlie Strong at Louisville and Willie Taggart at Western have advanced their programs, UK coaches have not. They’ve done poorly fielding a product not worth $48 a pop and $10 parking.

For well-paid Joker and X and O pals, no whine, no excuses. With Texas A&M and Missouri joining Smash Mouth, go recruit large, ornery young men with big motors a (coachable) mean streak and pride. And, find a tailback or two bigger than 5-feet-8, 175-pounds. This is the SEC, for heaven’s sake.

MICHAEL KIDD-GILCHRIST

Fresh smiles of fearless 18-year-olds with their noses in the wind all things are possible. National television dates and travel to places like Madison Square Garden, Bloomington Indiana and Mecca, Rupp Arena, life is good.

The fast break lobs, the hops, high 5s, fist pumps and ever the linchpin, unselfishness, give Kentucky fans much to look ahead to through a hard winter.

From appearances so far, No. 2 ranked Kentucky has the caliber of players who move fans to keep radio call-in profitable, put on body paint, blue wigs, write poems and jingles, buy jerseys and assign nicknames.

At the front this time – Michael Kidd-Gilchrist may be to his team what Mike Casey was four decades ago, Dirk Minniefield 30 years ago, and John Pelphrey in 1991. ‘Happy to be here,’ jubilant, relentless, smart, savvy and a man who keeps his head when the rookies lose theirs. A leader.

FALL OF AN ICON

JoePa, ya stayed too long!

An icon to the masses, including me, in pursuit of winningest-ever, Penn State’s Joe Paterno stayed too long. By a decade.

JoePa’s stubborn resistance to Time and desperation to keep hold on his turf fogged his mind to a point where words from grad assistant Mike McQueary a decade ago about what he had just witnessed failed to move the needle on Paterno’s Richter scale.

Think of it. An employee comes to your office, says he has witnessed molestation of a child by another employee. Whatever your task at hand, following the cursory “say what!?” you’re up from the chair, around the desk in an instant, and into the hallway. Not at a walk, no amble or shuffle, but sprint to find out what’s going on!

JoePa passed McQueary’s information up to his superior.

Then, the grandfather to 17 children said nothing more about it for a decade.

That Penn State’s Board of Trustees fired Paterno did the old coach a huge favor. Made him a martyr to loyalists. Two days later JoePa hired a defense attorney as storm clouds gather, civil law suits against Penn State could bring the university to its knees.

JoePa. What a disappointment.

College coaches, huh?

Honorable ones dwindle to so few, a man could pencil a list that would be short enough to fit onto a Post-It with room to spare.

NBA LOCKOUT

Games cancelled until Christmas at least, no NBA season would be devastating for an already ailing economy, right?

Wrong, according to a study done in 2000 by two professors of economics in Maryland on past labor-management disputes. Excerpted from the Nov. 21 edition of Time Magazine, the study found “no impact on 37 metro economies with professional sports franchises. In fact, cities appeared to perform better in years games were cancelled.”

Sporting evenings are just one option for people spending entertainment dollars, the study found. Without sports, fans tended to spend their money at restaurants or movie theaters.

Further, sporting events also “cost cities more for public safety. Games being eliminated meant city governments borrowed less or collected less taxes.” Those who work at the arenas – vendors, concessionaires and ushers are impacted, “but cities will survive without hoops. They just won’t be as much fun.”

Epilogue: In fact, it can be much more fun and less expensive too, when fans turn back to college basketball. If they find a ticket of course.

And so it goes.