For one week in Birmingham, Kentucky football was the thing that kept sneaking into conversations about Kentucky basketball.
That is not usually how SEC Media Days works. The basketball program tends to own the room, the brand that everybody measures against. But with Will Stein and the football Cats suddenly the hotter topic, even Kentucky’s hoops coaches found themselves nodding toward what’s happening on the gridiron.
Kenny Brooks kicked it off while talking about Kentucky’s three McDonald’s All-Americans - Maddyn Greenway, Emily McDonald and Savvy Swords. He pointed to the pull of the Kentucky name, then shifted to the sport currently grabbing the spotlight.
“I think it’s proven me right why I wanted to come here,” Brooks said of his recruiting success. “I obviously wanted to come to piggyback off of the brand, the Kentucky brand. When you think about Kentucky, you think about basketball - although Will Stein has done a good job of making us think about football right now.”
He’s not wrong. Basketball season is almost here - the first men’s exhibition is Friday - but right now the state’s attention is locked onto football.
Kentucky is 5-1, has beaten two top-ten teams, and after Saturday’s upset of No. 10 LSU, the Cats are in the College Football Playoff conversation.
That’s a place nobody would have predicted not long ago.
Meanwhile, the basketball team has been flying under the radar. The media picked Mark Pope’s group to finish seventh in the SEC this week, and Pope didn’t dodge the chance to point back to the football team when asked about the poll.
“I’ll be honest with you: we don’t spend a lot of time on polls,” Pope said. “We spend all of our time on the work that we do and the wins that we earn.
We’re very, very focused on the only opinion mattering is the opinion in our locker room, and that’s really important for all teams in all sports. It’s really important for our team at Kentucky, for us to become what we can become.
“The polls will change. They change every week.
I think our football team - which is just crushing it right now, is so fun right now - just to tell you how smart the polls are, they dropped them out of the Top 25 after they went on the road and beat an SEC team on the road. So, the guys came back and proved that the polls didn’t matter to them either and added another epic win against our counterparts at LSU.”
Pope’s point was clear: Kentucky’s football team has been leaning into being doubted, and it has worked. Stein has kept that edge sharp this week even after the LSU win drew plenty of praise.
On Saturday night, he thanked the College Gameday crew for picking against Kentucky. Then on Tuesday, he doubled down on the idea that outside noise doesn’t mean much to him.
“I really don’t worry about what people think about me. I never have.
I never will. That’s just kind of how I am as a person, and that’s really how my team plays,” said Stein.
“It’s just funny. Everybody that we beat seems to be a really bad football team. So that’s what kind of drives me a little bit right now.”
Kentucky basketball already has its own mantra this summer - “Eat what you kill.” But after the way football has been operating, the bigger question in Lexington is whether the hoops program should borrow a little more of that same attitude and crank it up another notch.
In Other News...
Kentucky Faces A Tougher Oklahoma Test Than Fans May Expect
Kentuckys trip to Oklahoma sits in the middle of a crowded week of college football picks, but it stands out because this is the kind of game where the familiar SEC script can get upended in a hurry. The matchup comes with plenty of recent trend-watching attached, along with the sort of player and performance notes that shape how these predictions get made, and it gives the Wildcats a chance to show they can handle a road test that looks tougher on paper than some fans may have expected.
Oklahoma brings the sort of profile that can punish a team if it starts slowly, and that is why this one has drawn more attention than a routine conference preview. Kentuckys outlook is tied to whether it can match the Sooners tempo and avoid the kind of mistakes that tend to decide games like this, which is also what makes the prediction angle so interesting: the gap between what people think and what actually happens could be smaller than it appears. [Read more 🡒]
Lance Heard Is Giving Kentucky's Offense Something Few Tackles Can
Lance Heard has quickly become one of the more versatile pieces in Kentuckys offense, and that matters for a team looking for every edge up front. The left tackle has not allowed a sack through the first six games, but his impact has gone well beyond pass protection. Kentucky has found ways to use his size and movement skills in space, including a highlight-reel sweep against South Carolina, and the results have given the Wildcats something few offenses can say they have from the tackle spot.
His coaches have also been creative with how they deploy him, at times lining him up as a lead blocker in the backfield, a role Heard has clearly embraced. He was again part of the story in Kentuckys recent overtime win against LSU, adding another layer to a season that has already shown how valuable he can be when the Wildcats ask him to do more than the usual left tackle job. [Read more 🡒]
Kentucky's Linebacker Situation Just Took Another Unexpected Turn
Kentuckys inside linebacker picture got a little clearer, at least for the moment, when Alex Afari was granted eligibility to play by a temporary injunction from Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Brian Edwards. The ruling comes amid a lawsuit challenging how the NCAA is applying its new five-year eligibility rules to players who graduated high school in 2022, and it adds another twist to a situation that has already moved through multiple legal decisions.
For Kentucky, the timing matters because Afaris status directly affects a depth chart that has been under pressure at inside linebacker. His return gives the Wildcats another option in a spot where every available body counts, even as the larger eligibility fight continues to play out in court. [Read more 🡒]