Temperature gauge at your local bank reported mid-90s this week. Must be time for football.

Beginning Sunday at Lincoln Park in Franklin, Kentucky coach Joker Phillips opens a four-stop road show. Fun, games and souvenirs for Big Blue Nation kids and families. And, unlike John Calipari $ummer $tops, Joker’s Gameday Ready Tour price is right, it’s free.

Why a fee for the latter and not the former? UK basketball is about supply and demand economics, it sells. Football begs.

National champions set market value, while SEC football bottom feeders get a backseat on the Playoff-bound Express. Still, much as Alabama and others cash in on Kentucky basketball, Wildcat football picks up an equal-share cashier’s check alongside king ‘Bama and the rest.

Joker’s tour start this weekend, brings us to a Kentucky football 2012 reality check.

Nice man, Joker Phillips. Principled and no-nonsense, a Native son who caught 75 (mostly Bill Ransdell) passes for nearly thousand yards and nine touchdowns in the 1980s. He waited for and earned a turn at the UK job. But nice in SEC football usually means your name is high on the Hot Seat list. Nothing feeds the SEC bulldog better than winning.

• This Gameday Ready Tour could be Joker’s last hurrah. Boss (Mitch) Barnhart has kept the dreaded vote of confidence in his quiver, but made it clear in early spring UK football has taken a step back and he expects to see progress this fall.

That’s AD code for “we’ve got lots of tickets and parking and concessions) to sell for seven home games … we’re charging fans Tuscaloosa-level prices … and, come October (and Big Blue Madness), we cannot afford to see Commonwealth Stadium half dressed up as empty seats.

Unsaid, but painfully obvious – Barnhart knows and savvy fans know too what SEC quality talent and performance look like and too seldom are tailgaters going home happy. (lone recent exception, 10-7 win over the Vols).

Progress? What does it mean?

1. From get-go, September 1 at Louisville, Kentucky had better have its clock primed, wound perfect and on precision. Otherwise, the expected-to-be-ranked and expecting to beat UK Cardinals will clean it amid jubilation and chants of Sweep tied to a December 29 hoops date in Yum Center.

For Big Blue Nation, the next Governor’s Cup is as important for Joker Phillips and his team as last year’s feel-good finale against Tennessee and is certainly the most important since the UK-UofL re-start in 1994. And, given SEC add-ons Texas A&M and Missouri, and Louisville’s flirtation to change leagues too, it may well be the last Governor’s Cup

Next for Joker, the chain reaction thing.

2. A UofL win would elevate Charlie Strong’s star to another galaxy and same time raise the decibel level on radio call-in show – howls for his pal Joker’s head. Would be noise enough around UK to spawn puzzlement and low morale among players, bad mood and siege-think through coach offices and spoil focus for on field wars from the start.

3. Momentum could dissolve into regroup-talk against Kent State and Western Kentucky instead of Big Mo ahead of another trip to the black hole in Gainesville.

Another poor showing by the Wildcats at the swamp could bring us, “… so, how is Nerlens Noel looking these days?”

4. Recruiting could spin into limbo and the word ‘transfer’ rise in conversation.

Not a pretty sight is it?

5. A wobbly season start at Kentucky would also fuel that other fan favorite, the rumor mill. “Who’s gonna be our next coach?”

Four months ago a name spun into summer speculation seemed laughable since he had been sent packing from Fayetteville. The name Bobby Petrino seems less comic today.

Petrino to Kentucky would be laughable if not for the common direction being taken across college sports today. Sell out to win at whatever the cost. “This is business, bay-bee!”

The Petrino-to-Kentucky is ironic.

When Petrino was blustering along the sidelines in Cardinal red coaching UofL in 2003-06, he was the unapologetic arch-villain who ran up a score against UK in its own stadium. He was the second most despised ball coach in the state for Kentucky fans. The first was his colleague, Rick Pitino.

Times, they are changing.

Stay tuned.

COLLEGE HOOPS

With a week before the NBA Draft June 28 and four months-plus until Big Blue Madness, CBS Sports writer Jeff Goodman had time enough on his hands to compile a list of best non-conference games schedule for 2012-13 college basketball season.

Of interest to fans in Kentucky …

1. Kentucky at Louisville, Dec. 29.

3. Kentucky versus Duke (Atlanta) Nov. 13.

7. Louisville at Memphis, Dec. 15.

14. Baylor at Kentucky, Dec. 1.

19. Kentucky at Notre Dame Nov. 29.

40. Kentucky versus Maryland, (Brooklyn), Dec. 9.

WORTH REPEATING

Father’s Day reflections.

An argument can be made that Father’s Day does not rise to the level of reverence and appreciation accorded Mother’s Day. In the words of one wise little boy, “Father’s Day is just like Mother’s Day except you don’t spend as much money.”

Which brings us to a list this father of daughters read somewhere recently. Perhaps you know a father-of-daughters who had said …

• Don’t give me any of your lip, young lady.

• Young ladies perspire, they do not sweat.

• You’re not leaving the house dressed like that! What will other parents think?

• Could that dress be any longer?

• Just remember, boyfriends are like buses. Just wait on the corner and another one will come along soon enough.

And …

“I love you, princess! You know will always be Daddy’s little girl.”

And so it goes.