Thumbs Up

Sound System- Every bit as good as advertised. Lots of bass in the end zones causing the seats to vibrate. With a big crowd and a good game, the stadium should be rocking. Still need to mic the band though, as you can still barely hear them. You could not hear the halftime performance at all.

Video/ Ribbon Boards - Very, very nice.  Will look even better at night. Two quick complaints though, the closed captioning is insane and they need to put scores from other games on the side ribbon boards. The luxury boxes block the edge of the end zone boards. Now for a third complaint... all advertisers have to be blue or white. If there are red advertisements on the boards during next weeks game they need to re-think this.

Intro Videos- Finally after 3 years of pure crap, we got some pretty sweet Intro videos and music. Loved the great moments from the last few years, the Stevie Johnson raps, and the tunnel camera. Need to sync the music better as the song ended before the team came out, but I cannot tell you how much improved the pregame experience is at Commonwealth. Bravo to UK staff.

UK Pres Eli Capilouto-  He may be my MVP of the day. Not once did we have to look at the East End Zone to see him and his wife welcome something that no one in entire stadium cares about.

Josh Clemons- Runs hard, runs low, and runs fast. The kid is going to be good. On an offense that has only scored 5 touchdowns, this kid has two of them, one of them being the longest run since 1970. Yet, he isn't starting, makes you wonder about this staff and their history of playing favorites. I have no problem playing both backs, but Clemons should get the bulk of the carries.

Danny Trevathan - Continues to do what he always does. Gets his 1st career interception, although he did get tackled by the QB. Leads the SEC in tackles

Greg Nord/UK Special Teams- I know we haven't played top competition, but the special teams also looks vastly improved. Good coverage on kickoffs and punts, little returns. Great hang time by Tydlacka and deep kickoffs by Mansour. McIntosh continues to be nearly automatic (not holding that miss yesterday against him, a horrid angle set-up by an even worse play call by Newton and company)

Discipline- 1 penalty and 1 turnover on offense. Thats pretty good and a huge improvement from last year

UK defense- Gave up a quick 13 pts on the 1st 3 drives but then went on lockdown as CMU never scored after the 2nd quarter. Now have 6 interceptions on the year after only 9 total last season. Have two players leading SEC in tackles... Danny T and Winston Guy. Their 4th and 1 stop changed the game and got the Cats back on the right track. Never thought I'd say this but they are almost too blitz happy sometimes and fail to stay at home, CMU took advantage of this early, but the Cats properly adjusted and closed it down in the 2nd half. Still struggle at times to get off the field on 3rd and long, but still a major, major improvement from last year.

Thumbs Down

Matt Roark- Should never play WR the rest of the season. Simple as that. Simply no excuse for his drops. That's 3 games in a row he has dropped perfect passes right to him. Two of those games they were easy, easy touchdown passes. Bravo to Joker and company for benching him after that abomination in the 1st quarter. In both games if he makes his catches these games are completely different, as the Cats probably roll without much negativity, but Stonehands just cannot flat catch. Also why does he not jump anymore on field goal blocks? He just stands there behind the line, which to me makes him look extremely stupid. If your only talent is having balls bounce off your hands and your sent into block kicks, you look pretty dumb just standing there not jumping. I don't care if the ball is 50 yards over your head you should probably atleast look like your trying. Anyway, hope you enjoy the bench Matt, keep a warm spot open beside you for Raymond Sanders.

Randy Sanders- Play calling is still the pits. The 5 yard comeback on 3rd and 15 should have gotten his headset yanked off and him set in the corner facing the wall for the rest of the day. You can argue Newton made a bad a throw (which he did)but the fact of the matter is the play called had 3 WR options, all of them were several yards short of the 1st down marker. Forgiveable, if it was our 1st time, but alas, we've been running 3rd down pass routes short of the 1st down marker for 3 years. It has to stop, and stop now.  A 5 yard route on 3rd and 15 is the same whether it is completion or not, your still punting on 4th down, so at least give yourselves a chance and throw downfield. Speaking of throwing downfield we have done a lot more of that this year, please keep it up. Vertical passing is so much better than our typical horizontal crap.... Glass half empty says we are in major trouble on offense and we were just trying something to get positive yardage with the Newton running plays. Glass half full says we've been planning on Newton running plays from the very beginning, we were just trying to get to the Louisville game without showing anything. I guess we shall see.

Videoboard Replays - Doesn't do much good to have a huge video board if you're not going to show replays. We had 0 replays in the 1st quarter, including Stonehands touchdown drop. No one in the stands really knew what happened, we all thought he caught it (yes we should have known Roark can catch anything, but still, as UK football fan you dream things can change). Replays got better as the game went on, so I am guessing there were some technical difficulties early on. Also, why are we replaying questionable calls that go for UK, Newton's INT was going to be ruled out of bounds until our inept replay guys showed it on the jumbotron and the CMU coach saw it and went ballistic. Gotta take advantage of home field boys.

Smile Cam - Why must we put this up after the other team makes a big play. It looks very, very stupid and if it was my company that was sponsoring it, I'd be raising some hell. 4 times yesterday during a tv timeout the "Smile Cam" was on the video board. The first 2 times were after CMU scores... True fans shouldn't be happy, nor smiling then. Just extremely stupid and makes the fans and UK athletics staff look incredibly ignorant.

Officials- I realize we weren't in line for the "A" crew, but that missed call on the kickoff was horrendous. I was 95+ yards away and I could see his knee was on the ground, and the head umpire right there didn't see it? Not only that, the guy in the replay booth didn't think it needed to be reviewed? Thankfully Joker went crazy and challenged the call, which took all of 3.2 seconds to be reversed.

Pam Ward - Was at the game, didn't hear her, but just know she was awful.

Central  Michigan Coach - Honestly, I feel bad; I do. We've been there so many times. You're dominating a game for 3 quarters and you make one bad call. That compounds to another and before you know it.   In 3 plays you go from up 7 to down 7. The moment it happened I knew the Cats would win.  Seen the Cats be on the opposite end of that so many times, to teams like Florida and Tennessee. So I do feel bad, but he broke one of my many cardinal rules of football. Never, ever,ever go take the ball backwards on 4 and 1. You only need one yard... why hand off in the backfield? You're just adding more yardage you need to cover to pick up the 1st down.

Fans - I realize money is tight, tickets are expensive and the Cats aren't exactly the greatest show on earth but still it was a prefect day for football and the stadium was nearly empty. Pathetic boys and girls pathetic. You may have a better seat at home but you also have Pam Ward there.

Weathermen - Cloudy with a few peaks on sunshine? Tell that to my red cheeks and sun burnt arms. Come on boys get it together for once!