Tag: Football

Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Doubted

Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Doubted

I owe Will Stein an apology. And possibly a fruit basket.

Shortly before kickoff against South Carolina, Kentucky’s first-year head coach told Tom Leach that his team had enjoyed a productive week of practice. The players were focused, their mindset was right, and everybody was ready to play.

Seventeen unanswered points later, I suggested on social media that the right mindset and focus must have missed the team bus. Perhaps they were still enjoying the complimentary hotel breakfast. Whatever the case, they certainly weren’t anywhere near Williams-Brice Stadium.

Apparently, they were just running late.

Kentucky 35, South Carolina 34 in overtime. It was the largest come-from-behind road victory in Kentucky football history, courtesy of a team that evidently believes the first quarter is optional and a fan base that has collectively exhausted its supply of blood pressure medication.

I’ve followed Kentucky football for more than half a century. I’ve witnessed enough heartbreaking losses to qualify for federal disaster assistance, watched promising seasons disappear faster than complimentary food in a press box, and spent countless Saturday evenings wondering why I continue subjecting myself to this particular form of recreational torture. So cut me some slack if I remain a tad bit cynical.

Just when I was ready to pronounce the patient dead, somebody brought out the defibrillator.

Kenny Minchey deserves a substantial portion of the credit. His final numbers won’t necessarily send Heisman voters scrambling for their ballots, but 28 completions in 41 attempts, 272 passing yards, and three touchdowns tell only part of the story. With the running game struggling to establish itself, Minchey had to help bring Kentucky back through the air.

And he had plenty of accomplices. Kenny Darby caught 12 passes for 96 yards and a touchdown, while Nic Anderson contributed five receptions for 80 yards and another score. Willie Rodriguez added five catches for 57 yards before delivering the two most important points of the afternoon.

With Kentucky’s comeback hanging in the balance, Rodriguez hauled in the decisive two-point conversion that turned a remarkable rally into a historic victory. Somewhere across the Commonwealth, grown men were hugging strangers, frightening household pets, and making promises to the Almighty that they’ll conveniently forget before next Sunday.

Will Stein called them his Comeback Cats. He also talked about a band of brothers, an expression I’ve generally associated with coaches who have run out of original material for their motivational speeches. But I’m beginning to believe him. This team has now demonstrated an unusual ability to absorb punishment and regroup without surrendering.

I’m not suggesting that spotting SEC opponents 17 points is a sustainable business model. In fact, I’d strongly recommend against it. But there is something rather intoxicating about watching a Kentucky football team refuse to accept the inevitable.

Which brings us to LSU.

A week ago, the Tigers’ upcoming visit might have inspired the usual combination of cautious optimism and gastrointestinal distress. Now I’m contemplating possibilities that would have seemed certifiably insane when South Carolina was running roughshod over Kentucky’s defense.

What if this team is actually good? What if Stein has assembled something special? What if the Wildcats can somehow defeat LSU and turn the remainder of this season into an extended celebration of everything we’ve spent decades believing Kentucky football could become?

Somebody confiscate my computer before I start researching College Football Playoff hotel accommodations.

Of course, there’s a rather significant difference between believing you can beat anybody and actually demonstrating that you can play four competent quarters against somebody. Kentucky has developed an impressive capacity for surviving adversity, but I’d prefer that the Wildcats occasionally experiment with avoiding it altogether.

Still, two extraordinary road victories over Texas A&M and South Carolina have changed the conversation. The dream that seemed so improbable when the season began is suddenly alive and well.

And if the Comeback Cats somehow knock off LSU next Saturday, I may have to reconsider my entire philosophy of Kentucky football.

Just one request, Coach.

Next time, please make sure the mindset and focus arrive before kickoff. My cardiologist and I would greatly appreciate it.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining for Posterity, and all his books at Amazon.

The Power of the Power K

The Power of the Power K

I have never understood why a letter can make grown men emotional.

Then somebody puts a Power K on a Kentucky football helmet, and suddenly men my age start pining for a bygone era. Voices soften and eyes glaze over. Somebody inevitably says they ought to bring the darn thing back permanently.

Never mind that it is basically a K with another K hiding inside it. To Kentucky football fans of a certain vintage, it might as well be the family crest.

The Power K comes from a different Kentucky football world. There were no transfer portals, collectives, helmet communication systems, or $40 million rosters. Nobody spent the offseason wondering which five-star quarterback might be available for the right NIL package or which embattled head coach would ride off into the sunset with a ridiculous multi-million dollar buyout.

We spent it wondering whether we could beat Vanderbilt.

Sometimes we couldn’t.

This is important to understanding the Power K.

Kentucky basketball nostalgia is easy. You remember winning championships, raising banners, and attending Final Fours. You watched Goose Givens score 41 points in a national championship game, the Unforgettables nearly beating Duke, and Tony Delk raining threes. There is generally a trophy somewhere in the memory.

Kentucky football nostalgia requires considerably more imagination.

There were good teams, of course, great players, and memorable wins. There were a few seasons when Kentucky legitimately mattered nationally.

Derrick Ramsey quarterbacked one of them.

I had the privilege years later of helping Derrick tell his story in a book, and maybe that’s one reason the Power K hits me differently now. I don’t just see a logo when I look at those old pictures. I see Derrick wearing it. A kid from Hastings, Florida, who came to Kentucky via Camden, New Jersey, and ended up quarterbacking the Wildcats to a 10-1 season.

There he is in those old photographs, that Power K sitting on the side of his helmet.

Derrick was young, strong, and full of possibility.

Weren’t we all?

That’s the sneaky thing about nostalgia. We think we’re remembering football when we’re really remembering ourselves.

The Power K takes me back to Commonwealth Stadium before somebody decided stadium names should sound like supermarkets. It takes me back to parking in somebody’s yard, listening to Cawood on the radio, and believing every September that this might finally be the year.

Usually it wasn’t.

And still we came.

That’s the part younger Kentucky fans may never completely understand. Kentucky football did not require loyalty because it won. Kentucky football required loyalty because it was ours.

We sat through the losses. We froze our fannies off sitting directly on those cold metal bleachers in November. We watched Tennessee and Florida beat us in ways that occasionally violated several provisions of the Geneva Convention. We studied recruiting classes filled with players we’d never heard of and somehow convinced ourselves that half of them were underrated.

Then we came back the next Saturday. And the next year. And the year after that. Maybe that’s why an old K can do something that a slick new logo never will. Look at it long enough and you can almost see the people who used to sit beside you.

Your dad.

Your old college roommate.

The buddy who had the parking pass.

The guy who always brought the bourbon, purely for medicinal purposes.

You remember walking into Commonwealth Stadium together when the trees were turning and the air had that unmistakable October chill. You remember the band. The roar. The blue jerseys. The Power K flashing under the lights.

You remember thinking there would always be another Saturday.

There isn’t.

That’s what gets me now.

Derrick Ramsey is 20 years old forever in those photographs. Art Still is bearing down on another quarterback. Cawood is still behind the microphone. Commonwealth Stadium is still Commonwealth Stadium.

And somewhere in those stands is a younger version of me, with more hair and fewer worries, believing with absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever that Kentucky is about to win.

I’d give a lot to sit next to that guy again.

Just for one Saturday.

So, yes, bring back the Power K whenever you want. Put it on the helmets. Paint it at midfield. Sell it on shirts to aging Kentucky fans who already own far too many Kentucky shirts.

We’ll buy another one. Because you’re not really selling us a logo. You’re selling us a ticket back.

And for just a moment, when that old Power K comes running out of the tunnel, we’re all young and carefree again.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. He currently serves as a columnist for Nolan Group Media and invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. His latest book is Whining for Posterity, available on Amazon.

One Shining Medicare Moment

One Shining Medicare Moment

I knew this was a bad idea.

When Mark Pope announced Media Madness, the invitation sounded innocent enough. Come to the Joe Craft Center, put on a uniform, play a little basketball, and interact with the Kentucky players.

What could go wrong, I asked.

Well, plenty.

I haven’t touched a basketball in three decades. Even when I did, I wasn’t particularly good. My competitive career ended somewhere around eighth-grade intramurals, although “career” may be stretching things. I couldn’t really jump or shoot. My handle was weak. I was small and I was slow.

Other than that, I had all the tools.

Still, somewhere inside every lifelong Kentucky basketball fan is the belief that he was one growth spurt, one lucky recruiting break, and perhaps two completely different parents away from playing for the Wildcats.

My growth spurt never came. Neither did the recruiting call.

Medicare did.

But on Thursday afternoon, more than half a century after I first dreamed about wearing Kentucky blue, I finally got my chance. I’m pretty sure I was one of only a couple of participants with a Medicare eligibility date on his scouting report.

To be fair, I’m in better physical condition than many people 30 years younger. Unfortunately, none of my daily workouts involves dribbling a basketball while another human being tries to steal it. I was fit, but my basketball skills remained in hospice care.

About 70 media members showed up in all sizes, shapes, and stages of athletic denial. There were young guys who looked as if they had been secretly training for weeks in hopes that Pope might discover an overlooked 30-something wing lurking in the Lexington media market. Others appeared to have prepared the same way I did—with compression socks, multiple knee braces, and an emergency contact.

We arrived early and were rewarded with a peek at Kentucky’s practice. That lasted until Pope became somewhat unhinged and kicked all of us out of the gym because we were too loud.

Imagine that. Seventy media members invited into a Kentucky basketball practice and somehow we couldn’t keep quiet. It was our first blown assignment of the afternoon.

Once Media Madness officially began, we were divided into teams and put through passing, dribbling, and shooting drills run by Kentucky coaches and players. Zoom Diallo drew the short straw and became coach of the green team.

Zoom did the best he could with what he had.

Unfortunately, what he had was us.

Coach Pope likes players who communicate, so I tried to do my part.

“Screen left!”

“Ball!”

“Anybody have some ibuprofen?”

My goals were modest. First, avoid injury. Second, scarf down any free refreshments like a true member of the working press. If time permitted, I planned to contribute to winning basketball.

That third goal became increasingly negotiable.

There is a sobering moment in every aging man’s life when his brain tells his body to make a move and his body asks whether the move is absolutely necessary. I saw openings. I recognized opportunities. I simply chose not to pursue them.

Basketball is also much faster at floor level than it looks from press row. From press row, I have excellent court vision. I routinely spot missed rotations, poor shot selection, and passing lanes that Division I athletes somehow fail to see.

On the court, I discovered that the passing lane I saw was actually Malachi Moreno’s leg.

My scouting report was brutally simple: Excellent cardiovascular fitness for his age. Questionable handle at any age. Undersized without the compensating quickness generally associated with being undersized. High basketball IQ that becomes considerably less useful when holding an actual basketball.

There were flashes, though. At least I remember flashes. Then again, those may have been my developing cataracts.

Once the competition started, the green team never had a chance. I would like to blame poor officiating, questionable seeding, or an institutional conspiracy against elderly Asian point guards. The truth was much simpler.

The other teams had players.

There was genuine physicality in the paint. Bodies collided. Rebounds were contested. A few media members competed as if Pope had a spare scholarship hidden beneath his quarter-zip.

Meanwhile, I tried to find open space and avoid becoming part of an orthopedic case study.

At one point I found myself standing on the same court where Kentucky practices, listening to Pope shout instructions, and trying to remember everything I had learned from decades of watching the game. Keep your head up. Move without the ball. Square your shoulders. Follow through.

Bend your knees.

That last one I could actually do. The YMCA deserves some credit.

For a few glorious moments, however, I was no longer a retired orthodontist with a media credential and an AARP card. I was a Kentucky basketball player. Granted, one who would have been immediately encouraged to enter the transfer portal, but a Kentucky basketball player nonetheless.

When the bodies were cleared and the competition ended, the last two teams standing were appropriately KSR and JMI. Even at Media Madness, the major media conglomerates apparently hoard all the talent.

KSR ultimately prevailed. Congratulations to the champions. Youth won the day.

Enjoy it while you can.

Come back in 30 years and let’s see how you do then.

The event also gave the real Wildcats a chance to interview us afterward. This seemed only fair. We’ve spent years asking players how they felt, what they saw on a particular play, and whether they thought the team “wanted it more.”

Now they could ask me what happened out there.

I had the standard answers ready.

I just tried to stay aggressive.

My teammates did a great job finding me.

We have to watch the film, get in the gym, and get better.

At this level, everybody can play.

Except, apparently, me.

Media Madness was humbling. It was exhilarating. It was proof that being in shape and being in basketball shape are two entirely different things—and neither one guarantees you can make an uncontested eight-footer.

But it was also a childhood dream arriving about 55 years late, after the recruiting services had stopped returning my calls and just before the early-bird dinner specials kicked in.

Thank you, Mark Pope. I finally made it onto the court with Kentucky basketball.

My eligibility is intact.

My dignity, however, is officially listed as day-to-day.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining for Posterity, and all his books at Amazon.

Because of Me?

Because of Me?

When Will Stein was asked at SEC Media Days why Kentucky football will succeed now after years of inconsistency, his answer wasn’t long.

“Because of me.”

That’s certainly one way to grab a headline.

My first reaction? I actually laughed.

My second reaction? I’m still not sure what to think.

On one hand, I appreciate confidence. You don’t become an SEC head coach by doubting yourself. If you don’t believe you’re the right person for the job, why should anyone else? Fans have spent years begging for coaches with swagger, vision, and the ability to convince recruits that Kentucky can compete with anyone.

Will Stein clearly believes all of that.

In today’s college football landscape, maybe he almost has to.

Coaches aren’t just coaches anymore. They’re CEOs, fundraisers, recruiters, salesmen, and motivational speakers rolled into one. Every microphone is another recruiting pitch. Every quote is designed for social media. Every appearance is another chance to create momentum.

Perhaps “Because of me” wasn’t really directed at reporters.

Perhaps it was directed at every high school recruit listening.

Still…

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

Stein has already made comments suggesting that everyone wants to play for Will Stein. Now comes, “Because of me.”

At some point, the words begin to pile up.

And eventually, they demand results.

The Bible offers a timeless warning: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Those words weren’t written for football coaches, but they apply remarkably well. The higher you build yourself up publicly, the farther you have to fall if things don’t work out.

That’s what gives me pause.

Kentucky football doesn’t have the luxury of making bold proclamations without consequences. This isn’t Alabama. It isn’t Georgia. It isn’t Ohio State.

National audiences are already skeptical of Kentucky football. Many expect the Wildcats to finish somewhere in the middle or bottom of the SEC. Every confident sound bite becomes another receipt waiting to be pulled out if the season starts 2-3 or 3-4.

The internet never forgets. Neither do opposing fan bases. If Kentucky wins, Stein will look like a genius. If Kentucky struggles, those same quotes will be replayed endlessly. The memes practically write themselves.

That’s the risk.

Personally, I’ve always preferred coaches who let their teams do the talking.

Nick Saban rarely made games about himself. Mark Stoops built Kentucky largely by embracing an underdog mentality. Even Mark Pope, as energetic as he is, usually redirects praise toward his players, the program, or Big Blue Nation. Most coaches instinctively redirect the credit away from themselves.

Stein’s approach feels different.

More personal.

More confrontational.

More “watch me.”

Maybe that’s exactly what Kentucky needs.

Maybe the program has spent too many years trying to prove it belongs instead of acting like it already does. Confidence can be contagious. Players often reflect the personality of their coach. If Stein genuinely believes Kentucky is about to become something special, perhaps that belief spreads throughout the locker room.

I’d love nothing more than to look back in December and say his confidence was completely justified.

In fact, Kentucky fans should hope that’s exactly what happens.

Because if Stein backs up every word with victories, nobody will care how bold his quotes sounded in July.

Winning has a remarkable way of turning arrogance into leadership.

But until then, I’m reserving judgment.

Confidence is essential.

Cockiness is entertaining.

Results are everything.

One thing is certain: Will Stein has ensured that people are paying attention.

Now comes the hard part.

Living up to “Because of me.”

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining for Posterity, and all his books at Amazon.

Why Kentucky Didn’t Want Another Mitch Barnhart

Why Kentucky Didn’t Want Another Mitch Barnhart

The easiest way to understand Kentucky’s hiring of J Batt is to stop thinking about Mitch Barnhart. In fact, the farther away you get from Mitch Barnhart, the closer you get to understanding why Kentucky made this hire.

That’s not criticism. It’s reality.

For twenty-three years, Mitch Barnhart was exactly what Kentucky needed. He was steady, measured, patient, and dependable—all necessary traits for the head honcho in charge.

If Mitch Barnhart were a vehicle, he would have been a Toyota Camry. He wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t loud. He wasn’t constantly reminding you how innovative he was. He simply started every morning and got you where you needed to go.

For more than two decades, that was a tremendous asset. The problem, however, isn’t that Barnhart changed. The problem is that college athletics did.

The world Mitch Barnhart mastered no longer exists.

When Barnhart arrived in Lexington, players couldn’t transfer freely. NIL wasn’t a thing. Revenue sharing wasn’t a thing. Athletic departments weren’t competing against professional franchises for attention. Nobody was discussing private equity investments in college sports. Most fans had never heard the words “collective” or “portal.”

Back then, an athletics director hired coaches, built facilities, balanced budgets, and tried not to make national headlines. Today? Today an athletics director needs to be part CEO, part fundraiser, part lawyer, part economist, part politician, and part crisis manager. Somewhere along the way, college athletics stopped being a department and became an industry.

That’s why Kentucky’s hiring of J Batt feels so significant.

Kentucky wasn’t looking for the next Mitch Barnhart.

Kentucky was looking for Mitch Barnhart’s opposite.

Again, that’s not an insult. It’s a recognition that the job description has fundamentally changed.

Barnhart represented stability. Mitch Barnhart ran Kentucky athletics the way your favorite small-town banker used to run a bank. He knew people. He remembered names. He understood that relationships mattered. You got the sense he could walk through a student-athlete dining hall and recognize half the room.

J Batt inherits a world where the athletics director is less small-town banker and more hedge fund manager. The challenge isn’t remembering everyone’s name. The challenge is making sure the balance sheet survives long enough for there to be a team wearing the jersey.

Barnhart spent years carefully building Kentucky athletics.

J Batt arrives at a time when the entire structure of college sports seems to change on a monthly basis.

One man was built for certainty.

The other was hired for chaos.

And make no mistake—chaos is exactly what college athletics has become. Schools are paying players. Players are changing schools. Conferences are expanding. Conferences are disappearing. Lawsuits are flying. Revenue-sharing models are being rewritten. Television contracts are driving decisions that would have seemed absurd a decade ago.

The sport isn’t evolving. It’s mutating. Which is why I find Kentucky’s hire so fascinating. The university didn’t simply replace an athletics director. It acknowledged reality.

For years, Kentucky’s greatest advantages were tradition, facilities, fan support, and resources. Those things still matter. But they no longer guarantee anything. Today, success depends on navigating a constantly shifting landscape where the rules seem to change faster than the scoreboards.

The modern athletics director isn’t simply protecting an institution. He’s repositioning it. That’s a different skill set. It’s also a different personality.

Mitch Barnhart always felt like a caretaker.

J Batt feels more like a venture capitalist.

One was entrusted with preserving what Kentucky had built.

The other is being asked to figure out what Kentucky must become.

Those are very different assignments. And that’s why this hire feels bigger than many fans realize.

Most people will judge J Batt by wins and losses. That’s understandable. Fans should care about wins and losses. But his biggest challenge may have nothing to do with scoreboards. His challenge is ensuring Kentucky remains Kentucky while college athletics transforms into something none of us fully recognize.

That’s not easy. In some ways, it’s impossible. Because the truth is that the college sports many of us grew up loving are already gone.

The amateur model is gone.

The old recruiting model is gone.

The old roster-building model is gone.

The old business model is gone.

What’s replacing them remains a work in progress.

Which brings us back to J Batt. Kentucky didn’t hire him because Mitch Barnhart failed. Kentucky hired him because the world Mitch Barnhart mastered disappeared.

The next decade won’t be about protecting the past. It will be about surviving the future.

And that may be the most important hire Kentucky has made in years.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. He currently serves as a columnist for Nolan Group Media and invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. His latest book is Whining for Posterity, available on Amazon.

Seven Million Dollars? Have We Completely Lost Our Minds?

Seven Million Dollars? Have We Completely Lost Our Minds?

Milan Momcilovic/ photo courtesy Jacob Rice/ Iowa State Daily

I have a confession to make. When I first heard the reported figure Kentucky allegedly paid Milan Momcilovic to come to Lexington, I assumed somebody had misplaced a decimal point.

Seven million dollars? Are you kidding me?

I immediately began searching for clarification. Surely they meant seven hundred thousand. Maybe 1.7 million. Perhaps even 2.7 million. After all, NIL has changed everything. But seven million dollars for one college basketball player? That number sounds less like a recruiting budget and more like something you would pay to acquire a small Caribbean island.

Before anyone accuses me of criticizing Momcilovic, let me make something perfectly clear. This isn’t about him.

I wanted more than anything for Kentucky to land him.

I think he’s exactly the kind of player Mark Pope needed. Kentucky lacked consistent perimeter shooting last season. Momcilovic is one of the best shooters in college basketball and immediately makes the Wildcats better in so many different ways. Not only will he score, but he’ll automatically spread the floor, allow his teammates to create, and open up the lanes for a bunch of easy baskets. If Coach Mark Pope wanted him, I wanted him. That’s not the issue.

The issue is the number.

Maybe I’m showing my age, but I grew up in an era when Kentucky fans debated whether a coach was worth a million-dollar contract. I can still remember when coaching salaries themselves seemed outrageous. Today, we’re discussing the possibility of paying a college basketball player seven times that amount.

Think about the names that have passed through Lexington.

Dan Issel.

Jack Givens.

Kyle Macy.

Jamal Mashburn.

Anthony Davis.

John Wall.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

None of them made anything remotely approaching seven million dollars while wearing Kentucky blue. Heck, Coach Adolph Rupp most likely didn’t make seven million dollars in his entire forty-year career.

Yet here we are.

What fascinates me isn’t necessarily the amount itself. What fascinates me is how quickly we’ve become numb to numbers that would have seemed absurd only a few years ago. If somebody had predicted ten years ago that Kentucky fans would be casually discussing whether a player was worth seven million dollars, we would have laughed them out of the room. That’s a lot of twenty-dollar handshakes.

Today the reaction is often, “Well, that’s just what it costs.”

Maybe that’s true.

In fact, that’s the uncomfortable part of this conversation. If Kentucky wants to compete for championships, perhaps this really is what it costs. Perhaps the market has spoken. Perhaps this is simply the new reality of major college athletics.

If that’s the case, then we should at least be honest about what we’ve become.

For years the argument was that players deserved compensation. I didn’t always agree. I felt the free tuition and associated amenities were more than a fair tradeoff.

But I’ve since relented a bit. Universities, television networks, apparel companies, and coaches were making fortunes while the players generated much of the product. I’ll admit the old system wasn’t fair.

But somewhere along the way, college athletics stopped evolving and started mutating.

Today we have free agency, bidding wars, contract negotiations, agents, revenue sharing, NIL collectives, and transfer portals. The jerseys still say Kentucky across the front, but increasingly the sport resembles professional basketball with pep bands and mascots.

I don’t blame the players.

In fact, if someone offered me seven million dollars when I was nineteen years old, I would have sprinted toward the nearest signature line before they could change their minds.

The players didn’t create this marketplace. The adults did. The schools did. The boosters did. The television networks did. And yes, the fans did.

For years, fans demanded that their schools spare no expense. We demanded elite recruits. We demanded Final Fours. We demanded championships. We demanded that our programs do whatever it took to stay ahead of the competition.

Well, apparently somebody listened.

Now we’re seeing what “whatever it takes” actually looks like.

Of course, all of this leads to the obvious question.

Is any college basketball player worth seven million dollars?

My answer is simple.

No.

Nobody is worth seven million dollars. Not John Wall. Not Anthony Davis. Not Cooper Flagg. Not anybody.

Unless…they win Number Nine.

That’s the standard at Kentucky.

At seven million dollars, we’re no longer talking about potential. We’re no longer discussing upside, projections, or recruiting rankings. We’re discussing results only. We’re discussing banners. We’re discussing championships.

Fair or unfair, a number that large creates expectations that are equally large.

If Kentucky wins a national championship, nobody will care what Momcilovic cost. Fans will call it a bargain. They’ll call it money well spent. They’ll celebrate the investment the same way businesses celebrate a successful acquisition.

But if Kentucky falls short, that number won’t disappear. It will hover over every loss, every missed shot, every disappointing March exit. That’s simply the reality of attaching professional-level money to college-level expectations.

Perhaps that’s what bothers me most.

The old connection between fans and players was built largely around shared identity. Players came to Kentucky because they wanted to be Wildcats. Fans embraced them because they represented Kentucky. Today, many players come because Kentucky assembled the most competitive financial package.

Again, I don’t blame them. Most of us would do exactly the same thing. But let’s not pretend the relationship hasn’t changed.

Maybe that’s progress. Maybe it’s inevitable. Maybe it’s even fair. I honestly don’t know.

But every once in a while, I hear a number like seven million dollars and find myself wondering whether we’ve mistaken evolution for absurdity.

And then I remind myself of one final truth.

If Banner Number Nine is hanging in Rupp Arena next April, nobody will remember the price.

Until then, however, I reserve the right to stare at that reported number and wonder whether college basketball has finally lost its mind.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. He currently serves as a columnist for Nolan Group Media and invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. His latest book is Whining for Posterity, available on Amazon.

NIL, APR, and Other Fairy Tales

NIL, APR, and Other Fairy Tales

The University of Kentucky Athletic Department proudly announced this week that UK student-athletes achieved a combined 3.471 GPA this spring, marking the 28th straight semester above a 3.0.

Twenty-eight straight semesters. That’s a mark of unparalleled consistency.

The release was filled with impressive numbers. Four hundred fifty-nine athletes above a 3.0. One hundred thirty-six with perfect 4.0 GPAs. Volleyball leading the way with a staggering 3.865 GPA. Men’s basketball posting a sparkling 3.59. Football climbing above a 3.0. Eight teams earning perfect APR scores.

And honestly, those accomplishments deserve recognition. A lot of these athletes work incredibly hard balancing travel, practices, media obligations, workouts, NIL appearances, social media branding, and actual coursework. The academic support staffs deserve medals for somehow keeping all the trains running on time in an environment that increasingly resembles free agency with mascots.

Still, forgive me if I chuckled while reading the release.

Because while UK is celebrating APR scores and graduation rates, the rest of college athletics now operates like a bizarre hybrid of the NFL, Wall Street, and reality television. Revenue sharing has arrived with a vengeance. NIL collectives function like salary-cap departments. Boosters debate roster construction with the intensity of Fortune 500 executives discussing quarterly earnings. Coaches talk openly about roster retention costs while fans stalk transfer portal announcements like day traders watching stock tickers.

Yet every spring, universities still release these glowing academic reports with the warm sincerity of a church bulletin.

“At Kentucky, the educational mission remains central,” Mitch Barnhart said in the release.

And I actually believe he believes that. I do.

But the contrast is impossible to ignore.

One minute, fans are screaming online about the desperate need for a seven-foot rim protector who can defend ball screens and shoot 38 percent from three. The next minute, the university puts out an APR graphic like educational outcomes are all that matter.

That’s what makes modern college athletics such magnificent theater.

We’ve created a world where a freshman quarterback can earn more money before his sophomore year than several university professors combined, yet schools still expect us to become emotionally moved over cumulative GPA announcements.

Again, this isn’t anti-education. Quite the opposite. I still genuinely love universities. My family funds scholarships. I spent decades in healthcare and education-related environments. I’m one of the few media people who asks academically related questions and questions APR outcomes. I believe academics matter deeply.

Which is precisely why this whole charade fascinates me so much.

The NCAA still unveils APR scores every year with all the drama of sacred scripture being lowered from the mountaintop. The Academic Progress Rate remains one of those phrases that sounds incredibly important while simultaneously causing most fans’ eyes to glaze over instantly.

We all understand that the average fan is far more concerned about whether Kentucky has enough NIL money to keep a backup guard from transferring to Arkansas next Tuesday.

At this point, “student-athlete” feels less like a meaningful description and more like a nostalgic phrase from another era. Like “video rental store” or “collect call.”

I especially enjoyed seeing men’s basketball post a 3.59 GPA. A 3.59 at Kentucky, no less. That’s genuinely impressive considering half the fan base spent the offseason demanding more “dudes” and another year of eligibility for Otega Oweh.

The real heroes in all this may honestly be the academic counselors. Somewhere inside the Joe Craft Center, an exhausted advisor is probably trying to have a serious discussion about long-term educational development with a teenager whose NIL valuation already exceeds the salary of multiple associate professors combined. The fact those conversations happen with straight faces is one of the true miracles of modern college athletics.

And maybe that’s why these academic numbers feel so strange now. Not fake. Not meaningless. Just disconnected from what college sports has become.

A 3.471 GPA in the NIL and revenue-sharing era simply does not carry the same context it once did. Not with online coursework, massive institutional support systems, and billions of dollars floating around the enterprise. College athletics has evolved into a professional entertainment business carefully wrapped inside educational branding, and everybody involved knows it.

The schools know it.

The coaches know it.

The players know it.

The fans absolutely know it.

We just keep pretending otherwise because “student-athlete” sounds far more wholesome than “young entertainment employee with a Maserati and a meal plan.”

So yes, congratulations to UK Athletics. The accomplishments are real, and the work behind them deserves praise.

But every time I read one of these glowing academic press releases, I still can’t help but picture some wealthy booster proudly nodding at the 3.471 GPA announcement while simultaneously texting a collective representative:

“Wonderful. Now how much for that five-star offensive tackle?”

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. He currently serves as a columnist for Nolan Group Media and invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. His latest book is Whining for Posterity, available on Amazon.

BLUEprint for Winning?

BLUEprint for Winning?

When I first saw Kentucky’s announcement about this new “BLUEprint” system, my initial reaction was the same as a lot of yours.

What is this BS?

Another buzzword. Another corporate-sounding initiative. Another step away from anything that once felt familiar.

But the more I sat with it, the more uncomfortable the realization became.

This isn’t BS. It’s reality. And maybe—whether I like it or not—it’s progress.

Because what Kentucky rolled out this week isn’t just some fancy database. BLUEprint is a centralized, analytics-driven platform designed to evaluate players across football, basketball, volleyball—every revenue sport—not just by how they perform, but by what they’re worth. It pulls together performance data, financial considerations, and roster projections into one system that helps decision-makers build teams with precision.

In plain terms, Kentucky has built itself a professional front office, the kind you’d expect in the National Football League, not on a college campus. And for the first time, Kentucky isn’t even trying to pretend otherwise.

And that’s where I really struggle.

Because I’ve spent a lot of time—probably too much time—writing about what Kentucky used to be. The tradition, the standard, the idea that this place meant something beyond wins and losses. That players came here not just because of opportunity, but because of identity.

But let’s be real—this pie-in-the-sky idealism didn’t die this week. It’s been fading for years. All BLUEprint does is put structure and a name to what has already replaced it.

And if the only thing that matters—if the bottom line—is winning, then I can’t sit here and tell you this is the wrong move. In fact, it might be the smartest thing Kentucky has done in years. Because the game has changed, and not adjusting isn’t noble—it’s negligent. You can’t compete in a marketplace driven by NIL dollars, transfer portal movement, and constant roster churn with gut instinct and nostalgia. You need structure. You need discipline. You need something that tells you not just who a player is, but what he’s actually worth to your program.

That’s what this is. It’s not about building a team anymore. It’s about managing a portfolio.

And frankly, that’s what Kentucky has been missing.

The last few seasons haven’t fallen short because of effort or pride. They’ve fallen short because the pieces didn’t fit—because the roster construction didn’t match the expectations, and because we were still operating like it was 2015 while everyone else had already moved on.

BLUEprint is an acknowledgment of that—a quiet admission that guessing isn’t good enough anymore.

But here’s the part I can’t shake—and I don’t think you should either.

There’s a cost to this. There always is.

Because once you start assigning value to players in a system like this, it inevitably changes how you see them. Not all at once, not in some dramatic, heartless way—but gradually, subtly. Development becomes projection. Loyalty becomes leverage. And that kid, like Dominique Hawkins or Derek Willis, who might have taken three years to grow into something special becomes harder to justify—and eventually, impossible to keep—when the numbers say someone else offers a better return right now.

That’s not evil.

It’s just efficient.

And efficiency doesn’t care about sentiment, pedigree, or passion—it just cares about return.

So when we talk about “Kentucky guys,” about culture, about the things that once separated the program with the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball from everyone else, we have to be honest about what we’re risking. Those things don’t disappear overnight—but they do get squeezed, marginalized, and replaced, piece by piece, by a system that rewards production over patience.

And maybe that’s what it takes now.

Maybe this is the price of competing at the highest level again.

I don’t like it. But I also don’t like watching Kentucky struggle to keep up in a world that has clearly moved on.

So here we are—not clinging to the past, not fully comfortable with the future, but standing somewhere in between, trying to convince ourselves this is still the same program we fell in love with—and cried over.

It’s not.

And maybe the most honest thing Kentucky did this week wasn’t launching BLUEprint. It was admitting—without actually saying it—that winning now requires becoming something different.

The question isn’t whether this works. It probably will. The real question is whether we’re willing to accept what Kentucky has to become for it to work.

Kentucky didn’t sell its soul. It just realized—too late—that it already had. And now, with BLUEprint, it’s trying to buy it back.

Not with tradition.

Not with loyalty.

But with numbers…and, hopefully, more wins.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining For Posterity, and all his books at Amazon.

Is the Kentucky Standard Dead?

Is the Kentucky Standard Dead?

When Mark Pope was introduced as Kentucky’s head basketball coach in 2024, I’ll admit it—I bought in. After his introductory press conference, I felt sure the Cats had hired the right guy.

Not because I thought he had all the answers, but because he was one of us. He knew. He lived it. Pope didn’t need a roadmap or a glossary. He didn’t need someone whispering, “Hey, by the way, these people are a little intense.”

And in that moment, it felt like Kentucky zigged when everyone else was zagging. While the rest of college basketball sprinted toward collectives, contracts, and cap sheets, Kentucky leaned into something refreshingly old-fashioned—identity, tradition, the standard. It felt right. It felt pure. It felt…very 2012.

Which, as it turns out, might be the problem.

Because while Kentucky was busy rediscovering its soul, the rest of college basketball was busy monetizing theirs. And now here we are, trying to sell “there’s no place like this” in a marketplace where the first question isn’t “What makes this place special?” but “What’s the offer?”

Pope said it best—and maybe unintentionally most revealing—when he talked about finding guys who want to be at Kentucky because of what Kentucky is. That used to be the entire pitch. Now it’s the opening paragraph before the real conversation even starts.

Because the truth—the uncomfortable, no-one-wants-to-say-it-out-loud truth—is this: the name on the front of the jersey doesn’t close deals anymore. It might get you in the room. It might get you a nod of respect. It might even get you a nostalgic smile from a parent who remembers Jamal Mashburn. But it doesn’t win the bidding war.

And that’s where the Kentucky standard has taken its biggest hit. Not erased. Not destroyed. Just…neutralized. The playing field has leveled.

For decades, Kentucky walked into every recruiting battle holding a royal flush—history, exposure, fan base, NBA pipeline. Other programs were playing checkers while Kentucky played chess. Now everybody’s got chips. Some of them have more chips. And suddenly Kentucky’s greatest weapon—its tradition—feels less like a trump card and more like a really nice add-on feature.

“Comes with eight national championships and a passionate fan base.” Great. What else you got?

And here’s where the irony gets almost cruel. Mark Pope—the human embodiment of the Kentucky standard—arrived at the exact moment when the Kentucky standard stopped being a decisive advantage. Talk about bad timing.

In another era, Pope’s story was the recruiting pitch. “I sat in those seats. I wore that jersey. I won a title here.” That used to resonate like a sermon in Rupp. Now it sounds more like a really compelling documentary…that the kid might watch later, after he signs somewhere else.

That doesn’t make Pope wrong. It just means he’s arrived at exactly the wrong time. Because he’s trying to sell meaning in a marketplace driven by math.

And to be clear, there are still players who care about meaning—who want development, legacy, and the full Kentucky experience. But building a championship roster by relying on that group alone is like trying to win the Kentucky Derby on sentimentality. It’s admirable. It’s nostalgic. It’s probably not crossing the finish line first.

Now before you accuse me of shaking my fist at the NIL clouds, let me be clear—I’m not saying Kentucky is finished. This isn’t a funeral. It’s a reality check.

Because Kentucky still has everything you’d want if you were building a powerhouse from scratch: brand, resources, fan support, visibility. What it doesn’t have—at least not yet—is full alignment with how the modern game is actually evolving.

And that’s the part that’s readily fixable. But only if we stop pretending the old way still works on its own.

I’ll be honest—I went from excited to confident to…let’s just say cautiously skeptical. Not because I don’t believe in Pope, but because I’m not sure Kentucky, as an institution, has fully accepted what this era demands.

You can’t just be Kentucky anymore. You have to operate like everyone else AND be Kentucky.

That’s the new standard. It’s harder, less romantic, and a lot more expensive.

The good news? Kentucky can absolutely do it.

The bad news? It has to choose to do it.

Because if the strategy is still “they’ll come because this is Kentucky,” then we’re going to keep having the same conversations every March—just with slightly different opponents and slightly more frustration.

The Kentucky standard isn’t gone. It’s just no longer automatic. It doesn’t win on reputation anymore. It wins when it’s backed by execution, resources, and—yes—cold, hard cash.

Not exactly the stuff they put on the Rupp Arena banners.

But it’s the game now.

And if Kentucky embraces that—without losing its soul—then maybe, just maybe, those golden days aren’t gone.

They’re just waiting on Kentucky to catch up to the present.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining for Posterity, and all his books at Amazon.