According to Louisville media outlets, Cardinals WR Scott Long broke his foot earlier this week. Long was expected to carry the receiving load for Louisville after losing Harry Douglas and Mario Urrutia last season. Without Long, Louisville suddenly becomes more inexperienced at wide receiver than even Kentucky is. This will make things very difficult for Hunter Cantwell, as this is a big game for so many new receivers to be making their college debuts. It’s one of the reasons I hated when Florida State and Miami moved their game from week 8 to week 1 a few years ago. Mercifully, that experiment is over. Still, the Louisville offense has an unenviable task against what I feel should be a much improved Kentucky defense.
On the other hand, the injury to Long worries me somewhat. I know the Kentucky defense is supposed to be the best of the Rich Brooks era, but the offense didn’t score one touchdown in the most recent scrimmage. I worry that it was more a case of bad offense than good defense. Louisville’s defense is projected to be a bigger disaster than Meet Dave, so there’s hope. But, you’ve got to believe that Louisville’s young skill players will come to the game with absolutely nothing to lose, a lot like Kentucky did at Commonwealth in 2005. If the Cards come out with guns blazing (assuming that Steve Kragthorpe can motivate his guys to do so – based on last year, it seems like a longshot), they can make enough big plays against the defense to put all the pressure on the UK offense. The looser a team is, the more dangerous they are. I can see Louisville being extremely loose for the season opener. For the first time since 2003, the pressure to win is on Kentucky, and I can only hope that our guys respond like champions.
And here’s one more thing I’d like to get off my chest. I don’t understand gymnastics. I never will compete in them, and probably won’t ever understand them either. I saw a tie on uneven bars last night between Nastia Liukin and some Chinese preteen. The tiebreaker just reeked of “Hey, let’s give the Chinese girl the gold and use math as the reason so nobody will protest.” You know how the Olympics should handle ties in judged events? Do what college football does. Make them do another routine, and make them keep doing routines until one rises above the other. Some might call it inhumane, but college football is better than gymnastics, and the college football tiebreaker is better than the gymnastics tiebreaker.
I’m Seth Stogsdill, and I can’t stand the “L Yeah” sign. They have not earned the right to use a hand signal.