Showing posts with label Kentucky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kentucky. Show all posts

10.21.2008

News & Notes

*After losing wide receiver Dicky Lyons for the season a week ago, Kentucky received some more bad news. Three of the Wildcats best players are injured and will probably miss the game with Florida this Saturday. Defensive tackle Myron Pryor and linebacker Micah Johnson are hobbled by high ankle sprains, and running back Derrick Locke is out for the season with torn knee ligaments.

*Northwestern senior middle linebacker Malcolm Arrington will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury. Arrington was third on the team in tackles.

*Talented linebacker Brian Toal’s career at Boston College is apparently over. The senior, who redshirted last year due to a shoulder injury, broke his right fibula and will be out for the year. It’s an unfortunate end to an injury plagued career.

*Oklahoma wide receiver Maunel Johnson is out for the season with an apparent arm injury. Johnson was the Sooners leading receiver, and he had scored seven touchdowns in the last three weeks.

*In case the anti-Curtis Painter bandwagon wasn’t full enough already, apparently we can now count Purdue running back Kory Sheets as a member. Here are some of his comments after the loss to Northwestern:

"In my eyes, I need some help. I can't do it all by myself. Everybody's coming up to me, 'Sheets, get the offense going.' I do something good and then something bad happens. I need some help."

"If they want to ask more of me, they just have to put the ball in my hands a little bit more, and they're going to get a lot more out of me. They put the ball in my hands, I feel we'll be a lot more successful."

When asked about Purdue's quarterback situation, since Curtis Painter was yanked in games against Penn State and Northwestern, Sheets said: "You need somebody in there who's going to be consistent. Right now, Painter hasn't been consistent and they're trying to find out if Joey (Elliott) can be consistent, but he got hurt. If they don't have consistency at quarterback, and I'm being real consistent, I think they have to start looking at me for some answers, and giving me the ball and letting me carry the team, instead of keep putting it in Painter's hands."

Finally, when asked if Painter was the guy who can lead this team to victory, Sheets paused and said, "No comment."

I definitely don't condone players airing their grievances to the press, but in this case Sheets is pretty much dead on. Sheets is an underrated, underused talent that could take some heat off the lousy quarterback situation if the coaching staff gave him the chance. I’m just not sure this is the way to go about getting more carries. The only certainty in West Lafayette right now is that Joe Tiller is going to end his career on a losing note.

8.08.2008

August Updates

* Cranky JoePa kicks two defensive linemen off the team
Luckily Penn State was already stacked on the D-Line. Losing Phil Taylor and Chris Baker hurts, but it will essentially only affect depth at the position. The Lions will still be fine up front, they just won't be able to rotate in as many guys as they were planning on.

* Wisconsin's Lance Smith kicked off the team
This isn't really that shocking. Smith was suspended from traveling with the team to road games last year, and Wisconsin has great depth at running back. So while Smith is a talented player, his presence on the roster won't be missed.

* Kentucky quarterback Curtis Pulley kicked off the team
The heir apparent to Andre' Woodson was booted off the team last week due to some off-the-field issues. Pulley would have brought a ton of athleticism to the quarterback spot at Kentucky, but now the job falls to sophomore Mike Hartline.

* Cincinnati's Ben Mauk denied extra year of eligibility
No offense to Ben Mauk, but I'm glad the NCAA made this decision. Mauk redshirted at Wake Forest, then played two full seasons. He was injured in the season opener his third year at Wake and then decided to transfer to Cincinnati where he played last season. He used all his eligibility - end of story. The NCAA doesn't need to be awarding all kinds of extra years to players every time they get hurt or we'll start seeing a bunch of Paul Blakes running around on the field - nobody wants that. I like Ben Mauk and it sucks that he's suffered so many injuries in his career, but the NCAA made the right decision and he needs to move on.