Most of the time, watching a game live will give a person a lot more perspective about a football team than watching them on television. Yesterday was no different. Sitting six rows off the field, I gathered a lot of opinions about our football team, UL’s squad and the crowd as a whole. Here they are:

I see the game going like this. Defense will set the tone for the day, and I expect a low scoring affair.

I think that both defenses will come out with guns blazing, but eventually, Louisville’s lack of depth in the trenches will come back to bite them. It has to, because it will be hotter than the mouth of hell in Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.

I think that Kentucky will slowly but surely wear down Louisville’s front seven with the running game. Louisville has woefully inexperienced linebackers, so I expect a lot of counters and misdirection plays from Joker Phillips.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Kentucky went with power in the first half with Dixon and Allen, then switched it up to speed in the second half with Smith and Locke. I predict that Kentucky will build a sizeable lead in the 4th quarter thanks to ball control and the running game, but Louisville will rally behind the passing of Hunter Cantwell.

This game will be close because Brooks and Phillips are very conservative coaches when their team has a lead. Here’s exactly how I see the scoring working out.

Kentucky will score first on a short completion from Mike Hartline to Dicky Lyons Jr.

Louisville will come back with two field goals. I think 7-6 will be the halftime score.

The two teams will trade touchdowns to open the third quarter. I predict touchdown runs by Dixon and Bolen.

I think Kentucky will force a turnover, get the ball in good position, but settle for a FG by Lones Seiber. I also think Seiber will miss one field goal, but I don’t think he’ll miss any extra points.

The touchdown that decides the outcome will come from Derrick Locke on a run of at least 25 yards.

Louisville will tack on a late touchdown on a long throw, Cantwell to Doug Beaumont. Then they will recover the onside kick with less than a minute to go.

Trevard Lindley will either break up or pick off the Hail Mary at the end of the game.

Kentucky will win, 24-20.

It’s about that time. I’m not content to wait any longer. I must do this.

I must make my prediction for the annual Governor’s Cup game be known right now. So here they are, numbered, but not in any specific order. Just treat it as a catch-all.

1. UK’s running backs will have their day in the sun. Historically the team that has won has had one back outrun the losing team. That’s been true since 1996. My prediction? For the first time in 12 years, that won’t happen. If UK’s coaches stay true to their word, UK will outrush Louisville and win the game. Just not with one back.

2. Louisville’s secondary was awful last year. I doubt they are better this year. Does that mean UK’s wide receivers will dominate? Probably not. Dicky Lyons Jr. might, the other guy? Watch for E.J. Adams. My prediction: Ron English can kiss my butt, Cats will still make big throws on the Cardinals.

3. Jeremy Jarmon will start not only his All-SEC run against Louisville, but his All-American candidacy as well. Or Louisville will double team Jarmon and Corey Peters will have a field day. Pick your poison.

4. Non-favorable UK prediction: Hunter Cantwell will have a solid day. Not great, but solid.

5. The game will be closer than I originally thought. Sure, UK has a running advantage, which will milk precious clock time. And UK has the better defense. But the Cards have a QB that can help lead a comeback. But in the end, Cantwell won’t have enough time to complete that comeback. My prediction?

UK 24, Louisville 17.

Rich Brooks finally wins at the Pizza Box.

Louisville’s offense is significantly better than its defense. Hunter Cantwell has backed up Brian Brohm for three years, and it is his time to shine. I’m not as high on him as some of the Louisville fans who say he’s even better than Brohm and use some weird Mel Kiper formula to make that deduction, but he’s more battle-tested than Mike Hartline. Cantwell is about the same size as Brohm, and while he isn’t Tim Tebow, his mobility should not be underestimated. Hopefully I’m thinking of Cantwell and not Stefan LeFors. The biggest thing about Hunter than worries me as a UK fan is his leadership and experience. He has started a few games when Brohm was injured, and he didn’t fare badly at all. He is without question the leader of the Cardinals’ offense, and if Louisville is going to win this game, Cantwell will most likely be the most outstanding player in the game.

One thing that both John L. Smith and Bobby Petrino did exceptionally well at Louisville was recruit running backs. Eric Shelton, Lionel Gates, Kolby Smith, Michael Bush, Anthony Allen, Jujuan Spillman and George Stripling were all extremely talented backs, and most of those guys were bulldozers. Brock Bolen is another one of those bulldozers. As the Cardinals’ roster became more and more depleted last season, Bolen got a workman’s load of carries, and his bruising style led to a 4th quarter comeback against Rutgers. He’s listed as a fullback, but he gets more carries than the average fullback. The other running back that got lots of carries against Rutgers was Bilal Powell, who I honestly have never seen before. He didn’t get one carry against Kentucky, and I didn’t recognize him on special teams either, so I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything about his running style. The Cards will still be decent at RB, but they’ll definitely be a notch below their previous teams at the position.

At wide receiver, Louisville is in trouble. At least Kentucky has Dicky Lyons. Louisville was supposed to have Scott Long carrying a similar load as Lyons, but he broke his foot last week and is out. Without Long and Trent Guy, The Cardinals are woefully inexperienced. Doug Beaumont had lots of special teams tackles in 2007, but no catches. The only returning receiver who has any career catches is Chris Vaughn, and he’s listed as second on the depth chart. Troy Pascley starts alongside Beaumont, but once again, I have no idea if he’s a speed guy or a possession guy. At tight end, Pete Nochta has the unenviable task of replacing Gary Barnidge, and just like Kentucky’s tight ends with Jacob Tamme, I feel sorry for the backup tight ends from Louisville who have to replace Barnidge, because Gary was a good one.

Louisville has two outstanding offensive linemen. Tackle George Bussey and center Eric Wood are three-year starters, and both are legit. I can definitely see Wood in the NFL someday. Bussey may have to put on a little weight, as 306 is getting lighter and lighter for a tackle. At the other three positions, the Cards are very inexperienced. Tackle Jeff Adams and guard Mark Wetterer are sophomores with zero experience. Guard Abdul Kutayeh is a junior, but like the others, has next to no experience. Bussey and Wood can block pretty much anybody. I don’t think any of Kentucky’s sacks in last season’s game were on them, but if I were a Cardinal fan, I’d be a little worried about the other three positions.

This should be the best Kentucky defense in the Rich Brooks era. It improved greatly in Steve Brown’s first year as DC, and with almost everybody returning, it should be even better this season. It all starts on the line. Jeremy Jarmon is the most underrated defensive lineman in the SEC. His motor never stops running, he wraps up well against the run and is one of the best pass rushers I’ve seen at Kentucky. Fellow end Ventrell Jenkins is no slouch either. Both guys are capable of getting the big sack on 3rd down. Myron Pryor and Corey Peters are returning starters at defensive tackle. Injuries have slowed down Pryor since his awesome freshman year, but both he and Peters can clog the lanes well. Ricky Lumpkin comes back from injury at tackle, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of Josh Minton and Shane McCord either. Between those guys and Nii Adjei Oninku backing up the ends, this is one of the deepest defensive lines I can remember at UK.

At linebacker, Wesley Woodyard is gone. No one player can replace the skills or heart of Wes, but a team effort can get the job done. Braxton Kelley is moving to Wesley’s spot on the weak side. Normally it’s a tough transition to go from the middle to the outside, but I feel like Kelley is both physically and mentally tough enough to get it done. Kelley moving to the outside opens it up for Micah Johnson to move to a permanent spot on the inside. Micah has finally been given the opportunity to live up to his potential. He’s shown flashes of brilliance in a backup role, but for whatever reason, he was never able to take the starting job away from Kelley. Nothing against Johnson, because Kelley is very good. Johnson’s time is now, and I hope he makes the most of it. Johnny “Hitman” Williams will line up in the other outside slot, but there have also been rumors that his pass rushing ability will enable him to line up on the line, similar to what Lawrence Taylor used to do with the New York Football Giants. Not saying Johnny is LT (nobody is), but the roles may be similar. Sam Maxwell backs up Williams on the strong side, and he’s a super athletic player. There’s a guy who can just fly to the ball.

In the secondary, Cantwell had best not throw to Trevard Lindley, or else the ball will get picked off. Lindley is one of the top cover corners in the country, and I don’t feel like a big homer when I say that. He just does everything well, and I’d say he’s the best player on the Kentucky roster. It hurt when we lost Paul Warford on the other corner for the year, but I think that a healthy David Jones can prove to be a great remedy. Shomari Moore and Robbie McAtee provide experience in nickel and dime packages. At safety, the explosive Ashton Cobb replaces the reliable Roger Williams. This has benefits and drawbacks. Roger wasn’t as athletic as Cobb, but he didn’t take as many risks either. Nothing sucks worse than when a safety gambles on a pick or a big hit and gets burned. Marcus McClinton comes back for his senior year at SS, and he’s nothing but solid. Calvin Harrison started a few games last year when Marcus got hurt, so the secondary is also very experienced and deep.

Louisville is decent at QB, good at RB, weak at WR and questionable at three of the five OL positions. Kentucky is good at DL, very good at LB and good at DB. I still worry a little bit about David Jones lining up opposite lindley in the secondary, and I think both safeties go for the big play too much at the expense of making the sure play. Still, that isn’t enough of a concern to prevent me from saying advantage: Kentucky.

As for the prediction, I’ll take care of that tomorrow.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, and if Tommy Beecher can start for South Carolina, so can I.

The pre-season is usually a bunch of crap. Lies are told, bold predictions made and most people have no idea what they are talking about. That’s why we’re here to seperate the cow from the bull****.

1. Louisville’s experience at quarterback will be enough for the team coast to a 6-6 or 7-5 season.

Verdict: Total bull. Listen here Louisville fans, have many teams have you seen with a good quarterback, and Cantwell is good but not great, will his team to victory? Sure, you have a 6′8 receiver who will be hung out to dry some many times he won’t have ribs. Your best returning WR has a bullet in his back. And you’re running game isn’t THAT great. Your defense won’t put you in the best field position. Sorry folks, this pre-season myth is bull.

2. Mississippi State is a dark horse candidate for the SEC West.

Verdict: TOTAL BULL. Listen, you guys did well last year, beat UK and went to a bowl game. Congrats. But you still have to play Auburn, LSU, and Alabama. Not to mention a stacked Ole Miss team with a better coach. Oh and UK wants revenge too. I like you Croom, but everyone crowning the Bulldogs needs to take a chill pill.

3. The SEC will be won by the East (Georgia or Florida) this year.

Verdict: Maybe bull. I mean, Percy Harvin hasn’t stepped on the field for Florida. Georgia has had injuries and off-season problems that might affect the team. If Auburn gets this spread offense down quickly watch out. If LSU finds a serviceable QB, watch out. Until Florida and Georgia get straight, I’m not so sure.

4. Spurrier will be done if South Carolina doesn’t seriously contend this year.

Verdict: Maybe true? But here’s the thing, Spurrier better quit now. He’s best QB has been suspended from the team before (Garcia) and while the defense is supposely stout, they said the same thing last year. Heck, UK might actually break their Spurrier winless streak, which should have been done last year. Columbia isn’t Gainesville, sorry OBC.

5. UK won’t have a winning season this year.

Verdict: TOTAL BULL. Four winnable non-conference games. The typical tussle and win over Vandy. A depleted Arkansas at home. Six easy wins boys. Throw in swinging something against Alabama (6-6 last year), South Carolina (6-6 last year), Mississippi State (7-5 last year) or Tennessee and looky here, a very attainable 7-5. What now, haters?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkg9EMkZvQs&hl=en&fs=1]

Fun fact: If Scott Long does not play because of the broken foot, Louisville’s remaining receiving corps will have a combined 17 career catches, all of them from one man, Chris Vaughn.

Fun fact: Doug Beaumont, a player expected to make up for some of the contributions that Long would have made, had 14 tackles last season. That number is greater than the number of tackles for any returning Louisville linebacker.

Fun fact: Louisville gave up 38 points last season to Syracuse with a more experienced defense than what they have this season. It was the only Big East victory of the season for the Orange, who finished 2-10 and only scored more than 14 points four times all season.

Fun fact: Louisville gave up 35 points or more six times last season with a more experienced defense than what they have this season.

Fun fact: Current Louisville defensive coordinator Ron English was fired last season from the same position at Michigan.

Fun fact: English’s defense was attributed as a key reason why Lloyd Carr was forced to retire at Michigan. This stemmed from a string of games where the Wolverines gave up 42, 32, 34 and 38 points to Ohio State, USC, Appalachian State and Oregon.

Fun fact: Michigan has traditionally had more NFL draftees on defense than Louisville, even during this decade, when Michigan has fallen off somewhat and Louisville has emerged as a good program.

Fun fact: Hunter Cantwell has only started one game in his career at quarterback at Louisville.

Fun fact: Woodny Turenne and Richard Raglin, the two players who were burnt on the game winning touchdown in last season’s Kentucky game, return to the Cardinals’ secondary this season.

Fun fact: As of today, Louisville is favored to beat Kentucky. Vegas changes its opinion all the time, but as it stands, Louisville is still the favorite.

Fun fact: Steve Kragthorpe is 0-1 in his career against Kentucky.

Fun fact, and then a diatribe: I have absolutely no idea why Kentucky is not favored to win this game. I understand that Kentucky has to replace several NFL players on offense and a great leader in Wesley Woodyard on defense. At this point, the only way I could see a Louisville victory is if there is a complete implosion on the offensive side of the ball for Kentucky. I’m talking about five or more turnovers that lead to multiple defensive touchdowns for Louisville.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, and the 31st can’t come soon enough.

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.

As some of you may or may not know, when I finally leave college I actually want to go into the world of sports journalism. I write for my school newspaper, I’ve freelanced for some pretty big entities and I can assure you that however bad you think my writing is on this blog–I don’t write my articles in a newspaper like I do here.

Anyway, I told you that to explain why I spent 10 weeks this summer in Paducah, Ky. interning and writing for the Paducah Sun newspaper. Paducah is also the hometown of U of L starting QB Hunter Cantwell. As someone who doesn’t pay a whole heck of a lot of attention to U of L, I had never seen a picture of Cantwell without his helmet on. It just never happened.

I’m also a God-fearing man, so I found a church down there and attended when I didn’t work on Sunday. I went to a college-age Sunday School class, where I sat next to this tall, skinny, floppy-haired kid who looked like a basketball player. For 10 weeks, I sat next to this guy, talking about love, life and the pursuit of happiness. I mean, really we talked about everything, except football.

And all the regulars never said anything to this guy who I thought was some Divison 2 basketball player or something. Honestly, this kid didn’t look big. So this kid led prayer some weeks, said he was big into Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Pretty laid back, never joked on anyone, just did whatever. But his old friends never talked football, never asked when he was due back to camp, never even mentioned his name. So I never thought twice about it.

Two weeks ago, I finally saw some mug shots of Hunter Cantwell without his helmet on. He’s tall, skinny and has blonde floppy hair. That’s right, I spent 10 weeks going to church with the “enemy”, Hunter Cantwell. And yeah I’m a little confused. I would have asked him how the team looked. What it feels like to be top dog, etc etc.

But looking back, I think Cantwell comes back home to get away from all of that. Cantwell is the anti-Brian Brohm. He’s not cocky, he’s not the local wonderboy, he’s not (enter remark here). He’s quiet, but social. He’s a man of faith. Just a small town kid, trust me, Paducah is definitely small town even as West Kentucky’s regional city.

And so while it was easy to root for Brian Brohm to get sacked, picked off or for him to fumble, I’m not so sure about Cantwell now. Sure, I still want UK to beat UofL and if that means Cantwell has to throw three interceptions, so be it. But I can’t openly root against him like so many UK fans did against Brohm. But I will say one thing….

If you beat UK, Hunter Cantwell, every nice thing I just said about you goes out the window.

Remember this guy and his catch? Expect more this year.

The countdown has begun. With less than two months until kickoff in Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium and an even shorter time until fall camps open up, it’s time to talk about the annual Governor’s Cup game. The Cats and Cards, right?

Well, all I can hear are crickets and silence. Explain yourselves.

I have my ideas on why this year has been quieter than even last year, when the two teams didn’t even play until the third game. Now the game is back to the opener. I vividly remember co-hosting several shows around this time on 1570 AM the Zone in Louisville (now 93.9 FM The Ticket, tune in!) and fighting with several Louisville fans. You thought you had the quarterback, even though I told you Woodson would have a better year and Louisville fans thought they had a title team.

Oops.

I understand why there might be silence. The only thing Louisville has coming back is Hunter Cantwell. I don’t think anyone is walking around campus boasting about that. A whole team has left since this time last year (what’s the count, 21? 22?).

Oh and your defense still sucks.

And Cats fans, this is pointed at you too. Why aren’t you talking about the game? You win the position battles mightily. Better at RB, DL, LB, DB. At least. And UK has the coaching advantage too, thanks to Rich Brooks. Taking the high road? Well, that’s fine.. but at least talk about the game.

This only solidifies my belief that Louisville fans are the biggest warm weather fans alive. That was shown in attendance towards the end of last year, probably will be for this year too.

Yet history shows no matter how bad, how uncertain each team is… the game is always a memorable one. It’s a freaking rivalry. Someone needs to step up and say something. The game is right around the corner. Is someone waiting for the first rock to be thrown?

Well, fine then, I’ll throw the first rock. Louisville sucks. Cant(throw)well is a joke. Louisville is a bad impression of Miami and Kragthrope is the worst coach besides Charlie Weis. Cats by 50.

I’ve thrown the rock. Anyone brave enough to throw one back?