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Cole Park

Indiana can. Can sort of cement itself as we are no longer this team that's going to be fighting for six wins anymore. Malachi, Tony, is he going to be ready?

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

Dante Moore.

Cole Park

He showed improvement.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

Better comm. What's going on, y'? All, Bud? Elliott here. Back again for another episode of Summer School. That's Cole park of our Great site on 247 sports cats paws. Cole. What's going on, dude?

Cole Park

Doing great. Happy to be here. How are you doing?

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

Doing well, man. Just excited to talk about Kentucky football, which for the first time in a long time is not head headed up by Mark Stoops. Tell me what's kind of been going on there. Lexington.

Cole Park

Yeah, I mean, it was. It was a fascinating turn of events last Season. I feel like after they kind of started getting some of those wins, they beat Auburn, they beat fl. Um, I feel like most people in the fan base kind of had that acceptance that I don't know if things are going to turn around, but we're probably getting at least one more year of Mark Stoops. And then you get that just Peyton Manning level performance from Diego Pavia down at Vanderbilt and Louisville just decimates them. And, you know, in Louisville, and it was at that point you knew that there had to be a change, that that shutout in Louisville was a horrible way to end the season, especially with bowl eligibility being on the line, finally being able to get back to a bowl. They failed to do that. You know, props to Mark Stoops. He obviously agreed to an extended buyout, which had not been the case in his contract. So he, he allowed Kentucky to kind of make that change. And then it was a pretty quick move to, to bring in Will Stein. You know, that was something that Mitch Barnhart, before he retired, said was integral for him to get done as quickly as possible, because you didn't want your roster just getting absolutely rated by every other team in the country. So I think that Stein has brought a new energy to this program. They've brought in a ton of exciting transfers, and arguably one of the best things they have done as well was retaining some of the key players they really needed to retain from last year. Because last year's team, while being very flawed, the record will show that had some very, very good, talented players on it. So they got a lot of those guys back. They added a lot more talent in the portal as well. The recruiting has been way higher than most Kentucky fans are used to it being, and just the energy around the program with Will Stein has been fantastic.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

What do you think the biggest changes are under Stein?

Cole Park

I think one, so far, they're just the way they've put an emphasis on recruiting. I feel like for a lot of the time, especially towards the end of his tenure, recruiting was something that Stoops didn't particularly love to talk about that much. I don't know that, you know, it was something he was eager to go sit up on stage and just discuss. And Stein is, you know, wins all over the. All over the board. Kentucky's getting on graphics that people would have never seen it getting on before. I also think there's just a new error in the way the program holds itself. I mean, we're, we're going through spring football camp and getting up for the spring game. And we had players talking about the goal being to win a national championship this year. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that that's just, you know, wishful thinking. But the fact that someone can even utter those words in a Kentucky media situation feels significant. You know, it feels like that's clearly what they want to build towards. That's clearly their intended direction. Maybe not this year, but long term with this program. So I think just, you know, adding that excitement back. We've already seen they already released a set before the season, not three days before the game of, like, what the games are going to be with, like, white out, blackout, those kind of things. That was something fans been asking for for a long time. I really just think it. Everything feels so much more focused on football right now. It really does. I wrote a column for. For we still do a print edition as well as our online edition with the Cat's Paw. One of the. One of the columns I wrote was that Kentucky football is demanding your attention. I mean, it's a time of the year where, historically speaking at Kentucky, this is basketball central. You know, you're looking at the transfer portal, you're looking at basketball recruiting. You're going through all of these things. And, you know, maybe a lot of people would pay attention to spring football if they really, really cared, get ready for the spring game. But football was never really at the forefront the way it has been and the way it's continued to be all year long after the season ended. So I think that's very, very exciting.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

How is this offense going to look? Is Stein calling this thing like we saw largely what he ran at at Oregon and at utsa. A lot of, you know, good bit of motion, a lot of kind of schemed up easy throws, you know, in the flash to get guys open, you know, some run game, obviously. What I. Is he calling it, like. Like, how do you expect this thing to look?

Cole Park

He's made it pretty clear that he wants to let Joe Sloan be the main play caller. He said that his goal is to be a great head coach and not a great offensive coordinator. You know, I'm sure that might be difficult for him at certain times during the season when games start getting close, but we'll see. Right now, he seems to be giving Joe Sloan the reins to kind of run things the way he wants to run things as well, obviously with his input as well. He's the head coach, but let him call his own plays. And you can already kind of tell, too, this staff is not Playing around when it comes to just being all willy nilly with stuff like that. When we were at the spring game, we watched a decently fun game, fine and well. And they. Stein just came out and told us after, he's like, I think we ran like four offensive play, four defensive plays and like a very limited offensive playbook. He said, you don't know who's out there, you don't know who's watching. I don't want to show anything that's gonna tip our hand for the first game of the season, for the second game of the season. So they're playing it really, really close to the chest. They went with a very basic, basic playbook in the spring game, but even then we saw a lot of exciting things. I think Kenny Menchie showed off an ability to mobile in a way that a lot of people maybe not weren't expecting him to be. I think a lot of the receivers, a lot of your veteran receivers were kind of held out for that. There was a lot of people held out for that spring game. They said the emphasis is just getting guys to the fall, then we can worry about what we need to do with them there. So. But even then with some of the young guys or some of the incoming transfers that aren't, you know, some of the vets that are expected to make a name like a Nick Anderson, you know, we saw, you know, Kenny Darby, he looked fantastic as well, and he's a, he's a true freshman coming in here. So there was a lot of guys that put a lot on display. Martel's Carter, who made that interesting move from safety over to running back. He was kind of the predominant running back in that spring game for the most part because both CJ Baxter and Javonte Barnes were being held out for that. All in all, I mean, it was, it was a unique watch. I don't know that it was a ton to gain in terms of this is what Kentucky's definitively going to do this season, but it was just to show that even when things are fairly basic, we even saw a little bit of trickery in that basic playbook. We saw a little a flip to wider receiver Shane Carr, who was also wearing a black jersey, a non tackle jersey, and he ended up throwing a touchdown pass probably 20, 30 yards to Kenny Darby as well. So that was pretty neat, but I expect it to be. You know, they said when he was hired the goal was to light up the scoreboards on Saturdays. That's something that really, for the most part, didn't happen under Mark Stoops. I mean, he was clearly a defensive oriented guy coming in as a former defensive coordinator. They want to light up the scoreboard on Saturdays. They want to have a thrilling, exciting offense without, I would say, being overly complicated as well. I mean, I think that they want to be relatively comprehensive in what they want to do without, you know, breaking the brain in terms of what needs to be done. They just want to. Stein's slogan is feed the studs. You know, find out who your studs are, who your best guys are, and get them the ball as often as possible. And then on defense, you know, you trust Jay Bateman and some of those guys that came back and what that side of the ball can look like with all that.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

So what do you think are the real strengths of this offense? Like, do you think they have studs?

Cole Park

Yeah, I do. I think, I think for one, Kenny Minchi at quarterback, I. I have high expectations for him. I think that, you know, anyone can be a little bit wary when you see a backup quarterback coming in to start at this level, but I think even Marcus Freeman would say that that was a close, close quarterback battle at Notre Dame last year, and that's a Notre Dame team that many felt should have been in the playoffs. Ultimately got left off because of the strength of the wins there. I'm not going to argue with the decision. I'm just saying that that's a team that was that caliber. It was a very close quarterback battle coming down to it. I think he has a lot of talent. I think in the wide receiver room, there's several guys mean. DJ Miller showed a lot of what he could do last year at Kentucky. He needs to just work on being more consistent now going into another year. I think Nick Anderson, there's a lot of high expectations for him coming in. You know, obviously he had his injury, but I don't think anyone needs to argue whether or not CJ Baxter has stud potential at running back. You know, coming into college, what he was expected to do. And then, you know, all across that, I think one of the biggest ones, too. Willie Rodriguez could be one of the best tight ends in America coming back for another year at Kentucky. Obviously he backed up Josh Cattus last year, but he just made some amazing plays and we've only heard good things out of him so far. So I think he could be a really, really pivotal player. They went out and they. They've got a ton of ve offensive lineman to really make sure they're protecting Kenny up front there, make sure that Was not a potential weakness like we've seen before. So I, I do think that, you know, do I think this is as talented as Kentucky's going to get? No, I think that they would like to get more guys that they see as studs. But for one year, for Will Stein's first season, for building this program, where it's at right now, I do think there's a lot of studs at multiple different positions on the field.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

So I, I, the offensive line was something I was very interested in. Obviously, like they, they got some guys who have, you know, league it. It seemed like they probably had to overpay a little bit to get him to come, you know, to Kentucky to leave their, their prior spots. And then the other side of me says if the established SEC teams wanted those guys to stay, they would have overpaid for them as well. Like, like, are. Is there any signal so far like those guys are working out or is there anybody like. Yeah, like that's definitely hit. They're happy with him.

Cole Park

Yeah, I mean, I think that so

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Cole Park

I, I do think that there's a lot of confidence in the offensive line. I think that there is a lot of guys, you know, that they feel good about that. Obviously Lance heard, we've seen that was one of their big gets. He did not really participate in the spring game, was kind of held out and that was fully planned. Actually. He, he needed a little procedure done and Stein basically told him, like, went to him and said, hey, get it done now. Let's not deal with it in the fall spring game. We'll get over it. Just get it done now. So we, when the fall rolls around, you're ready. Colton Price is another guy that I think there's a lot of. I talked with, we always do with the Cats paws, we always do our sit down one on ones with the head coach, the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator. And when I was talking to Joe Sloan, one of the things I asked him was, you know, you obviously went out and got some of these veteran alignment. You spent a lot of money on these guys. Just how critical was that for what you were doing? And he basically told me, outside of making sure you had a quarterback that could throw the football, the offensive line was priority number one. Like you had to make sure you get that right. He said, that's what we were building everything else around is making sure we had that front line where it needed to be and then we can place everyone else from there. And I think when you, when you think about it like that it does make sense. I think that a really, really good offensive line can make a average running back look better. I think it can make. It can give, you know, an average wide receiver more time to run their routes. It can give an average quarterback more time to make their throws. Really, it's. It can make every other position on offense look better if you get that position right. And on the flip side, it can make every other position look worse if you get that wrong. You can have a absolute stud at wide receiver, but if he doesn't have time to run routes, you know, he's not going to be able to do that much. So they, they clearly made that a huge priority in this offseason. And, you know, the numbers justify that as well. They prove that as well. So so far we've only heard good things. I think there's been a lot of excitement around cutter left, which as well. That's the coach of the offensive line. He's a very young guy, not far removed from a playing career at mcne. The players seem to love him. They said they like to joke with him how he's still talking to, like he'll go out there and get in their stance with them and show them what they need to do and complain about his ankle still hurting, that, you know, his career ending injury there. So they like him a lot. And I think that until we see differently, there is still a lot of excitement around that unit and there's a lot of confidence that it can do what it was brought in to do.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

Nice, man. All right, let's hit our first break here on the flip side, little defensive talk, a little schedule expectations of kind of where Will Stein is building this thing.

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Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

All right, guys, welcome back in here to summer school. That's Cole park of the Cats Paws, our great Kentucky site on the 24.7sports network. All right, so Cole, great rundown of the offense. Let's go ahead and break down the defense here. Where. Where do we feel. Let's start positive. Where do we feel really strongly about this unit?

Cole Park

Yeah, so first, I feel like the safeties. When you bring back a guy like Ty Bryant, that is a huge. I mean, that. I talked to Jay Bateman. He had a quote that made me laugh a little bit. He said, I think if there's 364 or there's not, if there's 134 FPS football teams, then he had offers from 133 of them. Like he was a guy that everyone in the country want and he goes able to return to Kentucky. So that was exciting to bring back Ty Bryant in the back. He was. He's clearly expecting a huge season. And I think too, on the flip side, they retained a ton of pieces on the defensive line. I think even under Mark Stoops, his worst years, that was one of the things that was consistently really good was the defensive line. You know, you've had a lot of guys look really good out of that unit and even go pro out of that group. So they, Anwar Stewart was one of the few coaches they actually retained keeping defensive line coach Anwar Stewart in there. And they, they bring back McKees, Humphrey, Grace. That was huge. Transfer out of South Dakota two years ago now. And he. He showed potential of what he can do this year. They, they expect him to be an NFL kind of player this year. Tavian Gadson is back. You got a few other guys in that room as well that prove they should be very, very good this season. So I think there's a lot of expectations for the defensive line, there's a lot of expectations for the safeties. And, and I think that they're, you know, you're seeing maybe the benefit of last year's woes where you had a lot of issues at cornerback and that kind of forced a lot of guys in before they were ready, forced those guys into the fire. Now you have several of those guys back get to Ryan Nichols and those guys are now experienced. They know what they're doing. They can kind of capitalize on that momentum from last season and be able to play better this year. I think really and truly the only spot on the defense that I would say I'm less than confident right now might be like the inside linebackers. And to some extent, maybe, maybe the, they're calling them the Jack now. They used to be, most people call them like edges, but they, they're the Jack now. And part of that just is because they bring back Sam Green, who we know is a very good football player, who we know can do his thing, but he's coming off a season ending injury last season and he has not been able to play up to this point. So while we do know he's been a really good leader, he's been doing his best to kind of keep the, you know, keep that leadership position. You just, there's, there's always some bit of wariness when, how, how a player is going to come back from an injury like that, how they're going to look. But those are really the two spots that I would say I'm not going to predict them to be bad and I'm not saying they don't have talent at those spots. I think that those are just the spots that we are less confident right now that, you know that's going to be good.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

You know, is Green wins expected, like

Cole Park

do football stuff again, I believe this summer? So I don't, I don't think he is right now, but I think he should be kind of getting closer to that as we get closer to the fall. I know, I think he had a procedure done last year after that injury so he, I know for sure he was not playing all through the spring. We were told that he should come back later than that. I don't believe, you know, right now he's doing a ton obviously, but I think by the time the fall rolls around he should be back involved in a lot of that.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

Gotcha. Okay, so pass rush and maybe inside linebacker questions, but feeling pretty good about the defense elsewhere, which kind of turning to like the, the bigger picture here, you know, when Stoops had that run from, let's call it 2016-2023. Right. And stripping out Covid, I mean 56 and 35 overall. And if you break it down like further even in that incredible run, which, you know, two 10 win seasons, four seven win season and an eight win season, which is certainly the best Kentucky stretch in my lifetime, you know, and going like you got to go a long way back I think to find one better. They were 27 and 29 in the SEC, right. And they were 29 and 6 in the non con, which includes bowl games obviously because you're not going to play a SC team in a, in a bowl game unless. No, that's almost possible. So looking at this like I've been thinking about like the impact of the nine game schedule, you know, because Kentucky, they always played Louisville, which is a legitimate non con and they typically would schedule like three of the worst non conference games you could find. Which I would do the same if I was Kentucky, obviously. Right. It kind of gives you at least somewhat of a floor there. It's interesting to me they seem to have like loaded up on the portal for this year when I think their schedule this year is really brutal. And next year I feel like this year you're getting four home games, five road conference games. You know, you get Florida, you get at South Carolina, you get at Tennessee, you get Bama, you get lsu, you get Vandy, you get at Missouri at A and M at Oklahoma, I mean they, they might be underdogs in all nine games, you know, like not huge dogs. And then like there's certainly a chance they're favored. We don't know what Florida will look like. We don't know, you know, what South Carolina will look like at that point. But like it was interesting to me. They kind of went all in on this year because next year's schedule to me looks a lot easier. Okay, so you do have to go to Texas, but it's Texas with presumably without Arch. Right. Ole Miss certainly without Trinidad. You know, you get Arkansas back on the schedule, you get Mississippi State back on the schedule. You know, you play Georgia, you get Auburn, you get Tennessee, get South Carolina, presumably with a new head coach. Don't know that yet. But, you know, and then you have to go to the swamp. Like, that's eyeballing this. It. It's. I'm curious your thoughts on this. Like, if I was doing this and I'm not Will Stein, and obviously, like, Will Stein has paid a ton of money and. And, you know, certain. That's probably one of the reasons why I took Kentucky job, because you can, you know, like, that's generational money for your family. Were you surprised they went all in on this year, given the difficulty of this schedule? Like, I feel like they did a good job in the portal and yet I still haven't going 4 and 8. Right. Like just, you know, but like, certainly they could go. Maybe they go set in five. And he rides the wave of recruiting momentum off that, you know, surprising, you know, overachievement type. What are your thoughts on that? Like, did you think. Think did you expect them to go this hard in the portal, like for this year?

Cole Park

Well, I think what you touched on there just a second ago really sums up a lot of my thoughts on the matter. I think that one thing we've heard all spring, from the moment Stein was brought in, is he tells us over and over again, recruiting is not one until the fall. He said all these big names we're signing right now. Great. All these things we're doing right now, great. We win recruiting in the fall. So I do think that there is some level of that. Absolutely. That, you know, if we can maybe pick off one or two of these games or even. Even just look competitive, if we can sell what we're building here in all these games, we can get the players in here to kind of build something serious. I think that also when you look at Will Stein, he's the kind of guy that, you know, he's never. He's obviously going to punt the football sometimes. That's how football works. But he's not a guy who's going to just punt something down the next season. I think he was ready to just kind of jump into the task and, you know, go for it. I think when you look at it from his perspective as well, and some of those guys you bring back, you only get. Get one more year of Ty Bryant. So, you know, why waste it? You know, you try to make the most of that. Same with Humphrey Grace. You only get one more year of that guy, most likely, so try to do the best you can. Year one. I also think it is especially two Kentucky situation. Not that Stein necessarily knew this when he took the job, but pretty early into his job, you learn that, obviously you're going to have a new athletic director going into, you know, really your first football season. You're going to have a new athletic director from the one that hired you. So you want to, you know, kind of make a good impression early. You want to kind of set the tone quickly with that. And I do think that, you know, the schedule just looks brutal this year. It really does. But, you know, Stein's also repeatedly reiterated that they're not going to be afraid of anybody. And, you know, it was in his introductory press conference. I was sitting there, right there in the front row, and he said, we want to beat. And I don't think he meant this as a shot at Mark Stoops, but, you know, people kind of reacted that way a little bit. He said, we want to beat. We want to win games in the sec. And not just those teams. We have been beating the other ones as well, the ones we haven't been beating. We want to win every single game we possibly can. You know, I mentioned that talk about the national championship. That was C.J. baxter during the. There in the spring, who said that that's their goal. And he didn't just say they want to win it. He said, we want to go 17 0. Like, they're 16 0. 170 if they have. I don't think that's actually possible to do that, but you know what I mean, 160 if they can, or win 17 games if they have to, if that's the way it comes down to it. But they won't want everything. They want all the smoke right away. And we'll. We'll certainly see how that plays out for them. Year one. I'm. I'm also kind of with you in terms of, you know, I. I don't want to anger our readership, but I don't have them winning that many football games either. I think if you're just looking at this objectively, there's, you know, they might surprise me, but they'd have to surprise me to win more than just a couple football games. So that's kind of where I'm at, too.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

It's also like, you know, just think about the other side of this. I guess there's certainly a possibility if you didn't go out and attack the Portal, given that you have this schedule, you could go three and nine, right? And then, like, to your point, like, yes, like, we can keep this tremendous class. Like, I just saw Jake out there at. At the opening finals, and like, okay, like, you know, there's no guarantees that. That star ratings translate on a, you know, one to one basis, but certainly, like, right in the aggregate, they're pretty good. And he showed some nice flashes out there. Like, you know, if you, if you go, if you went through, if you didn't attack the portal, if you didn't put a competitive product on the field, even if you said, like, be in some of these games, like, you know, pull an upset, maybe you're not able to hold on to that class as well. So, like, maybe you don't have to go 8 and 4, you know, to hold on to the class if, if the checks are clear. And there's a real reason for belief that down the road, you know, and obviously like Kentucky certainly spending now on football recruiting in a way that I'm not sure they always were. And they kind of, I do think, like, they're one of the programs that's most impacted by going from eight to nine, you know, because like, just like. And not getting Mississippi State on an annual basis now anymore either like that, like, you basically would want either them, Arkansas or historically Vandy, but Vandy's been pretty good under Clark Lee. You know, obviously we'll see how much of that was popping you, but, you know, certainly some cool. What, what record do you think would, like, have Kentucky fans just like, yes, like, we are on the right track this year?

Cole Park

I really think my predicted record, and I was being a little bit generous for our. Our yearbook edition was 6 and 6. I think that, that if, if they can pick off a game or two, they can go six and six. I think that would have people over the moon with this schedule. But I also think some of it too comes down to which games they win. I mean, we're talking about a Kentucky fan base that, you know, they want to win games and they have seen 10 win seasons before, but for the most part, they haven't seen a ton of football success. So I think that if you go four and eight, but you beat Alabama, people are like, you know what, this Will Stein guy might know what he's doing. So, yeah, I think part of it depends on which games you win. I think obviously, if I had to rank them, not obviously all 12, but in terms of order, importance, a lot of people really want to see them beat Louis. They really want to see a Louisville win. After some of those years, and especially after the way last year went, I do think that there's a lot of people really excited for the Alabama game. Whether that's foolish or not, you cannot lose any of the. Any of the three, you know, Youngstown State, South Alabama, those kind of teams, you have to win those for sure. And then if you can, you know, you kind of tongue in cheek reference it there. I'm kind of with you on that too. Don't, don't. It's probably in your best interest to try not to lose to South Carolina if you can. Probably one of the winner most winnable SEC games on the schedule. And that's. No, not intended disrespect to Shane Beamer, but that's just where things kind of look to be right now.

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That.

Cole Park

That seems like one of the more winnable ones. I think there would be a lot of fun to be had in Lexington if you could beat Florida. That's a game that was already a rivalry and now has the added layer of being John Summeral, being their coach, Brad White their defensive coordinator, a lot of, you know, former Kentucky guys on that defense. So that's one that I think is going to have a little extra emotion to it. Maybe not quite the level of Arkansas and basketball does, but like some level of that with, you know, Summer all being a former cat that a lot of Kentucky fans wanted to go to Kentucky. Brad White leaving even before, even before Stoops was really out of there. I mean, he, he kind of seemed like he was out the door already. Brad White did a defensive coordinator to go to Florida with Summer also. I think those, the games that, that there's a lot more excitement for than maybe there are necessarily like a Missouri or something like that. So I would say 6 and 6 would be over the moon. If you can go 5 and 7 and make it close in a lot of these games, I think there'd still be a lot of people that are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I even think there are some scenarios where like you kind of talked about there, if you can just give a fighting effort, if you can show that what you're building has a solid foundation and you can bring in some of those, you know, land recruits throughout the season even, even if you're not necessarily winning all the games, that there's going to be a lot of people who are like, I trust this process next year. Obviously you need to get to a bowl next year. You need to have a winning season next year. But let's see where this goes. I trust the vision being laid out for me.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

Yeah. And like, I can paint a 7 and 5 picture here. Right. It's basically like, hey, offensive line stays healthy. Some of the guys who are on their third stop, like, like a Lance Hurd, like he finally plays to his potential and has a staff that you know, is happy with him, you know, and then like Menchie shows why like you know, so many other schools actually wanted him in the portal and Kentucky won a, a big time battle and then you know, it's hard for me to paint a picture going to Oklahoma winning. Right. But like Vandy's starting a freshman quarterback, although I think probably a good one. We'll, we'll, you know, we'll see how it turns out. Tennessee is almost certainly starting a freshman quarterback and you know, they already had their best, you know, or most, most expensive pass rusher not playing this year. Right. Florida has a very talented but very injury prone receiving core and they are unsettled at quarterback and maybe have small bits of line questions if they all click. I think they're an awesome team, but who knows, right? Like Missouri, new quarterback, a lot of turnover on that team, you know, like that. The interesting though is kind of like the teams that they play that have, I would say more uncertainty are all on the back end of the schedule. So like keeping this team together and keeping this team believing in like hey, fight to the finish type thing if they do take a beating because I mean it's. What could they be like 1 and 2, 2 and 2. I mean they could very reasonably be 2 and 5 going into the Vanderbilt game, right?

Cole Park

Yeah.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

And then like guys, we got win like we got really winnable games relative to what we just played ahead of us. Like that's going to be if that plays out in that way. Or if they're three and four, they clip South Carolina or something like that. Or maybe they clip Bama at home. Home, you know, like keeping those guys fighting and say, hey, like a bowl's still attainable for us, right? We can still go and do something here. It's going to be certainly a challenge for first year coach and Wilson. I'm excited to see how this plays out, man. There definitely seems to be like kind of different energy around Kentucky now.

Cole Park

Yeah, first I think it's, it still makes me laugh and it's still so funny to me as a Kentucky guy sitting here that we're just talking about a possibility of Kentucky picking off Alabama this year. Just wild how things have changed.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

The sport has changed.

Cole Park

Yeah, really. But and to that point too, I do agree, I think that this first season is truly throwing Will Stein into the fire in more ways than some people maybe recognize right now. Obviously you've got the tough games. You have to show that you can coach football. But so much of what it means to be a successful head coach, you're going to be tested in this season. Can you keep a team engaged when things aren't going well? Can you fight through adversity? Can you keep everyone on the same page when it's looking rough, when people are talking, when. When inevitably there's going to be people that are, you know, trying to beat down your program, to mock, to make fun, rival fan bases, even some people in the fan base, you know, that's how it goes sometimes. So can you keep everything going when all of that seems against you? Because there's. They're going to lose games this year. They're going to. So how do you kind of respond to that adversity? How do you kind of, you know, continue to navigate recruiting in a season that maybe doesn't go the way you would like it to? When you're losing more games than you'd want to? How do you keep getting some of those, you know, recruiting wins going? I think that. But it's going to be so fascinating this season to watch Will Stein and how he navigates all of these different things. And as a first year head coach, I mean, I don't think you could have a crazier baptism of fire than maybe Kentucky schedule this year and all the things they're trying to set up while navigating that schedule.

Elliott (Podcast Co-host)

For sure. Cole really enjoyed this, man. I have to chop this up again. And nice to meet you as well.

Cole Park

Yeah, great to meet you. We'll have to do it again sometime.

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