(With all apologies to Matt Pilgrim, the beast-iest of them all)

Take it away Brett Dawson:

 

Last season, when UK lost to Georgia in Lexington, Randall Cobb was the Wildcats' full-time quarterback.
He has a new role, but he came into Saturday holding an old grudge.
"Personally, this was a big game for me just because I feel like I gave that game away last year," Cobb said. "A lot of people say it wasn't my fault, but that's my personality. I believe it was my fault last year."
Cobb, now a wide receiver/Wildcat QB made amends with the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter.
For all the emotion of the game, tough, Cobb denied that it was the biggest win of his UK career.
What's a bigger win, Cobb was asked.
"What's bigger?" Cobb said, then paused. "Next week."
That's when the Cats play Tennessee.

This kid has the heart of champion.  Simply awesome

A number of weeks I posed a simple question to the A Sea of Blue Community: Should Gillispie be fired?   This was before many of the events of the season transpired, but still just short of 400 votes were tallied.  In the end, a small majority said Gillispie should be retained.  More telling than the actual result, however, were the reasons supporting removal of Gillispie.

Reading through the comments, not one person mentioned any sort of mistreatment of fans, players, media or officials as the reason for firing the coach. Contrary to reasoning mentioned by Barnhart, fans quite justifiably siezed on Gillispie's on the court results.  So the question arises: are Barnhart and Todd valuing a principle that is not held in high import by fans?

In the end, Barnhart cited not Gillispie's record for his dismsal but some sort yet-to-be fully elucidated "philosophical disparity."  Barnhart's words are either profoundly telling or extremely poorly chosen.

A philosphy implies a deep-seated belief.  Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do." Either Barnhart, when interviewing Gillispie, failed to probe deeply into the coach's views (i.e., philosphy) or, less likely, he hired Gillispie knowing a gulf existed between the philosphy of UK (apparently determined by administrators) and the philosphy of the would-be-coach.  Regardless, Barnhart did not discover the "philosophical disparity" at the point of intiation of employment.  This is either gross negligence or gross indifrference or an absolute derilection of duty.

The absolute failure to expose the "philosphical disparity", calls into serious question the capacity of Mitch Barnhart and Lee Todd.

I've read a lot of posts in the past few weeks calling for Gillispie to be fired due to the team's recent struggles (i.e., losing five out of the past eight and losing someone of those games badly).  I'm more than a little curious to quantify this feeling and see if it is just a vocal minority or truly represents the sentiments of the A Sea of Blue community.  Since the ASoBers are generally the most reasoned and sober UK fans on the internet, if Gillispie can't find majority support here, I doubt he'll find it.

There's no equivocation in this poll, if the season ended today, should Gillispie be fired: YES or NO. Black or white.  No "well, if he loses against  so and so" or "wins X out of the last Y."

I'll start and say simply:  No it is downright ridiculous to fire the coach.

I am trying to branch out of from my usual post game selection of Maker's Mark and wanted to throw it out to the ASoB community to see if they had any recommendations.  I've got a fifth of Four Roses small batch (90 proof) that I am thinking about diving into.  Anyone ever had it?

Also, if you are going to give a really pricey bourbon, go right ahead.  In addition, however, please post one that is more moderate in price.

I was walking out of the Commonwealth Stadium after the UGA game and several people were stating that while the loss stung, it wasn't nearly as disappointing as past loses.  As a young but still long suffering UK FB fan, and fueled by my sullen post game attitude, I began to compile a list of most heartbreaking loses.  This is my catharsis (and hopefully it can be yours too).

1, Peach Bowl  Clemson 14 UK 13 12/31/93: The Mary Moore Fumble

2. LSU 33 UK 30 11/07/02: The Bluegrass Miricale

3. Florida 24 UK 20 09/11/93: Wurfell to Doering

4. Tennessee 52 UK 50 (4OT) 11/24/07: the streak continues

5. Governors Cup U of L 40 UK 34 (OT): Game delayed by lightning

Honorable Mention: Arkansas 71 UK 63 (7OT) 11//1/03; Any UT-UK game of the past;

Here's to "new" Kentucky

Daniel Orton has committed to UK.  Orton will formally announce at a press conference tomorrow.

Congratulations to Coach Gillispie.  I can only imagine this infuriates the other college coaches after Gillispie's "underhanded" gambit to move up Midnight Madness.  Nevertheless, this is a substantial get for the Cats and should put them on solid footing down low for years. Also a suitable Patrick Patterson if/when he goes pro after this year?

Source: Rivals, $ubscription necessary: http://kentucky.rivals.com/

Not a huge surprise but John Cohen resigned as head baseball coach to take the same position at his alma mater Mississippi St.  Assistant coach Gary Henderson was named the new head coach immediately.  Couldn't have caught Barnhart too off guard because Cohen told his AD he was leaving Friday morning and by that afternoon the Bat Cats had a new coach in place.  Here's to continued momentum for the Kentucky Baseball.

Uk athletic's article