Confidence is Back

With the new season just days away the feeling around Lexington, and probably all of Big Blue Nation is of pretty high confidence. The kind we haven't had in years. Not just that we will have a good season but that we will be GREAT. It may be a bit early and we could be getting ahead of ourselves since there are a few red flags (lots of youngsters, new offense & defense, new coach) but overall its fun to have this feeling again.

So for this post I wanted to write about one of my favorite memories of UK confidence...

It was February 4, 2003. I remember being a senior in high school and spending the whole day talking about the UK game that night. It was going to be a big one. For those of you that don't remember we were playing Florida. The big deal about the game was that Florida had just been named the number 1 team in the country days before. This was the first time Florida had ever been number 1. And now they were coming into our house.

The whole day nobody was worried that Florida was good or that a team we had dominated for years was going to usurp us for dominance in the SEC (remember those days). We were absolutely 100% sure we would beat them. And not just beat them but tear them apart. We were ready to show anybody that was dumb enough to rank Florida that high just how stupid they were. I didn't hear one person that was nervous in any way. It was fantastic. I remember one of my friends joking, that they hoped they do those rankings in pencil. We were being extremely cocky and it was just an outstanding feeling. That really stuck with me. Just how sure everyone was that we would win in a laugher. We were going to punish Florida for daring to be ranked higher than us.

Sure enough we won by 15, and it really wasn't that close. Lead by Bogans, Gerald Fitch, Erik Daniels and Chuck Hayes, the game was never in doubt. We lead by 23 at half time. It was one of those games where you almost got bored watching, just because there was never a question about the outcome. I remember being happy, but at the same time not really that impressed because we just knew we would win, we expected it. And the Cats were happy to oblige.

One of my favorite quots came from Gerald Fitch after the game:

Gerald Fitch...said Florida, which bragged about not getting rattled in Rupp, sure looked the part at the break. "I don't know, but a 20-point lead at the half, I'd get rattled," Fitch said. "It's tough to come into Rupp. The crowd was big time, which made it even worse (for Florida)." (from http://bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Games/20030204Florida.html)

Those were great days. The last few years we haven't had many where we knew we were going to win and they pulled it off. What with Gardner Webb and VMI coming in and beating us at home we couldn't even say that about the bunny games, much less against a number 1 team. Hopefully those days are back.

I know the Cats fans have a renewed swagger that we haven't really had in a while. I just want the team to be happy to oblige again. We are heaping some lofty expectations on them and it will be tough to come through and meet them all. But right now we have Hope, and we also have something else we have been missing for a few years...Confidence.

(feel free to put your favorite UK confidence memories in the comments section)