Perfect storm. A rare combination of circumstances. An actual coming together of three forces, resulting in an event of unusual magnitude.

Kentucky’s win over Tennessee qualifies, don’t you think?

In fact, with apologies to George Clooney, to say the coming together of rare circumstance at Commonwealth Stadium last week is understatement.

√ Favored Tennessee showed up in body if not in spirit, as if Kentucky was Win No. 6 as certain as enough renditions of Rocky Top to make everyone gag. Presto, the Vols were ripe to be beaten.

√ Kentucky showed up dressed in handsome black-on-blue uni(s) for Senior Day.

√ On a pleasant and sunny autumn day more than 10,000 Kentucky fans did not show up at all.

√ Beleaguered coach Joker Phillips showed up with a surprise. His wide receiver would be quarterback.

This was going to be a bad joke, right?

Only at points south of Jellico.

Perfect storm.

Matt Roark had not thrown a forward pass since Dick Cheney was running the White House, 2007. Kentucky’s skinny wide-out would become to his team what Tim Tebow is to Denver these days – finder of ways to win in spite of the skeptics.

How did Roark do it? Followed immaculate instructions. Game management, good decisions, all scripted by Joker’s men, principally Randy Sanders.

The Winston Guy-Danny Trevathan ministers of defense took care of the rest. The Wildcats stuffed the Vols running game like a Christmas turkey and bonged so many Yuletide bells in Tyler Bray’s head, the kid’s played somewhere between dizzy and daffy and “where am I?.”

Bong! Bray never found his tune.

And so, a field goal, a touchdown, nine Ryan Tydlacka punts and no turnovers stood. Kentucky had won its Super Bowl, deprived Tennessee a bowl bid, sent the Vols to SEC East cellar, and put Derek Dooley’s rump squarely on the hot seat.

When it was done, UK fans stormed the field, players hugged and bawled as November’s last Saturday faded to sun set gold. Roark was carried away on stout shoulders to surface hours later in Rupp Arena to make a Y. And nobody this side of Tom Leach gave Joker Phillips credit for any of it. He didn’t need it.

Epilogue. Platinum quote.“I’d rather end the season this way than a bowl any day,” senior linebacker Ronnie Sneed said. “It was awesome. … To see the looks, the happiness on everyone’s faces, it’s something that can’t be replaced. It’s a memory we’ll always have.”

Yep, college and seniors and team sport.

Perfect storm.

PERFECT STORM(s)

Resurgent Louisville earned a share of Big East title making BCS bowl talk nolonger a joke punch line. Teddy Bridgewater is Big East rookie of the year, and Charlie Strong coach of the year.

All while Rick Pitino’s men’s and Jeff Walz’s women’s teams are unbeaten and ranked in America’s top 10.

In Bowling Green, a bittersweet winning season ends for Western’s footballHilltoppers. But for 80 seconds on October 1 when Arkansas State drove and scored in the dying seconds to beat the Tops, Sun Belt champion Ark-State would be looking up at Western in the standings instead of down. And, the Toppers would be going bowling.

Still, the time frame for Western’s football turn-around makes the Hilltoppers2011 a Perfect Storm story.

REFLECTIONS

• Randall Cobb. With its best ever playmaker gone to star for (unbeaten) Green Bay, his photo on a Sports Illustrated cover, immediate NFL impact and Rookie of Year candidate, Kentucky football’s slid backwards was imminent.

From a broader view, Wildcat coaches had no after-curfew nightclub shenanigans to defend and no DUI arrests to explain. Joker Phillips got an unsolicited endorsement from his players, and will have a respectable graduation rate from 19 seniors.

That Mitch Barnhart honors UK’s contract with Phillips two years in, is the right decision.

Not since Tubby Smith out-foxed Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski in a March 1998NCAA regional, did we witness better game management than the Tennessee game.

By any measure, Phillips and staff created a clinical keep-always game film.

Moving to basketball …

• List of college men’s teams to watch: Slip Alabama into your Top 10. The Crimson Tide is as good or better than Kentucky, Florida and Vanderbilt. Add Saint Louis, Virginia Commonwealth and Murray State to the upstarts list.

Murray State’s Racers (7-0) won the Great Alaska Shootout last Sunday.

• Oops. Nevada Las Vegas made North Carolina at Kentucky, No. 2 visits No. 1 instead of other way round.

Although light years from NCAA tournament time maturity, Saturday’s game has Classic possibilities. Wins history, tradition and current ranking aside, individual match-ups are delicious enough to keep teevee talking heads chirping this week and beyond.

John Henson-Anthony Davis, Terrence Jones-Tyler Zeller, MichaelKidd-Gilchrist against whomever, and my favorite: Tar Heels against the House … sold out Rupp Arena.

• Darius Miller sixth man? He may or may not evolve as Kentucky’s sixth man, but what can said with certainty is Miller will embrace whatever role that wins. A kid raised in Maysville cut his basketball teeth on team-first and winning.

• Football. Thumbs Up for Kentucky’s black-on-blue football uniforms and white helmets. With distinct white numerals, handsome indeed.

JUST WONDERING DEPT.

Is it just me or has False Start gone viral in college football? Since no television game analyst, including CBS’s Gary Danielson, tells us, every coach should replace a rah-rah section on his weekly teevee show and explain why players jump the snap count so frequently.

FIRE DEPARTMENT

At this writing (Monday) six college football coaches were fired by last Sunday with more terminations to come.

Translation: Coaches break contracts, but University administrations can beruthle$$ too. Those who hired Ron Zook (Illinois), Turner Gill (Kansas) and the rest, show student-athletes that $chools are often no more honor-bound than job-jumping coaches.

PARTING SHOT

Oops. Another college coach moved his lips last week. Ex-Florida coach Urban Meyer was adamant he had no contact with nor job offer from Ohio State. With a wink-and-nod, we all knew he was lying.

By Monday morning Meyer had his own Perfect Storm in Columbus, seven-years, $40 million.

And so it goes.