2011 Kentucky Football Outlook

by Dennis Berry
(Kentucky )

Last year (the first half of the season anyway) was exciting for UK football fans. Unfortunately, I am sure reality will set in again in 2011 when we get into the SEC schedule like it always does. Although if we had not lost so many weapons on offense, the home schedule would be favorable for us. Most of our big games are at home.

We get:

Louisville ( a lot of young talent, but lost a lot players from last year)
Florida (transition year, but just so much talent still)
Mississippi State (Mullen has turned them around, but we usually play them tough)
Ole Miss (could be down this year, but this is usually when Nutt does his best coaching)
Tennessee (one of these years.... but I will not believe it until i see it)

There is no doubt we could have made some noise last year. We lost to Auburn by three points, then we beat South Carolina. If we beat Georgia we would have been right in the middle of the SEC East race. We lost to Georgia then Mississippi State, we were pretty much out then.

Then losing to Tennessee and the performance in the bowl game against Pittsburgh left a bad vibe around the program. For Joker this is big year, the program needs to show growth to give fans some faith.

I think this years team is going to be more like the 2008 version. The strength of this team is the defense. The defense returns 10 starters, but with not DC Rick Minter installing a new defense, there could be some struggles early. Most of the playmakers for this team are on defense.

On offense, Morgan Newton is going to have to step up. He has won in the past in the SEC, but he had a lot of help then, we lost a lot of offense to graduation and Cobb left early to the NFL, can't blame him. Newton has a strong offensive line to protect him. Although, if Kentucky is going to be successful the skills players are going to step up. There is talent at the wide receivers and running backs, but it is mostly young and unproven.

Like I said I think Kentucky is going to get 5-6 wins this year.

I really think Kentucky is looking at 5-6 wins at the most this year. If we catch some breaks, we win a couple of games we shouldn't, they could get to 8 wins. It's just nice that football back...

Either way, Go Cats!