A large number of college football teams begin the season by scheduling an opponent that most would call a cupcake. The reasoning is understandable; teams want to get off to a winning start, and keep their fans optimistic that a winning season is forthcoming. That philosophy is changing to some degree however. (Just take a look below in the next segment at some of the primetime matches dotting the schedule across the country today.)
The Kentucky Wildcats are coming off a disappointing 4-8 season, and who could blame them if they had decided to open with a surefire victory? The Cats will have an opportunity for a pair of blowout wins later in the season, when they host Eastern Michigan on Sept. 13, and Tennessee Tech on Nov.15. But this afternoon’s contest at Kroger Field is not expected to be a piece of cake for the Blue and White.
UK will be taking on the team tabbed as the favorite to win the Mid-American Conference championship by most prognosticators in the know about such things. The Toledo Rockets will fly into Lexington after compiling an 8-5 record last season, including a 41-17 win at Mississippi State, and a 48-46 shootout victory in six overtimes over Pittsburgh in something called the GameAbove Sports Bowl at Ford Field in Detroit.
That game featured QB Tucker Gleason passing for 351 yards and two touchdowns, with his favorite target being Junior Vandeross III, who had 12 receptions for 194 yards and a score. Both are back this year for the Rockets for their senior seasons. Gleason, who began his career at Georgia Tech, threw for 2,808
yards and 24 TDs in his junior campaign. Vandeross was first team All-MAC and caught 85 passes for 957 yards last year.
Toledo is hoping for a bounce back season from Kentucky transfer Chip Trayanum, who suffered an injury-shortened stint last year, when he was limited to just 19 carries for 101 yards. He began his career at Arizona State before moving to Ohio State, where he ran for 373 yards and three touchdowns as a Buckeye during the 2023 season. Interestingly, he also had 13 tackles for OSU from his linebacker position.
The Rockets are coached by one of the most highly respected young coaches in college football, 45-year-old Jason Candle. In 10 seasons at Toledo, Candle is 73-40 and led the Rockets to eight bowl appearances.
On the other side of the field will be a head coach who could be considered as one sitting on the proverbial hot seat following last year’s performance, where not a lot went right for the Cats. Mark Stoops took over a moribund program in 2013, and is credited with turning the Cats around. He took UK to a bowl game for eight consecutive years, beginning in 2016, and led Kentucky to 10-3 seasons in 2018 and 2021. But last year’s 4-8 mark, which included a woeful 1-7 SEC record, has many longtime loyal supporters grumbling.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on whether or not the Wildcats will be able to right the ship in 2025, with most pundits not giving them much hope. Most predictions have Stoops’ Troops repeating last year’s unsuccessful campaign, while finishing at or near the bottom of the SEC.
Kentucky will be counting on a well-traveled quarterback to lead the way. Zach Calzada is 24 years old and a seventh-year
senior, so he certainly doesn’t lack for experience. He threw for 2,185 yards and 17 touchdowns at Texas A&M in 2021 before transferring to the University of Incarnate Word, a San Antonio school known as the largest Catholic university in Texas. Calzada blossomed at UIW, culminating in a huge season last year, when he passed for 3,744 yards and 35 scores.
One of the mysteries surrounding this year’s Kentucky team will be who steps up at the receiver position for the Cats, who lost their top two threats – Barion Brown and Dane Key — to the portal. Stoops will be looking for seniors Ja’Mori Maclin and Fred Farrier III, and sophomore Hardley Gilmore IV to step up as the go-to receivers. A p[air of tight ends, senior Josh Kattus and soph Willie Rodriquez, will also be counted on in the passing game.
The offensive line is seen as a strength, but the defense is full of question marks. Kentucky has had its hands more than full attempting to stop the run in recent years, and the effectiveness on that side of the football will be imperative to any success enjoyed by the Cats this season.
This Kentucky team is so shrouded in mystery that this observer has no real insight on exactly how today’s opener will go, but if it does not result in a UK victory, there will be more than a little grumbling among the fanbase.
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WEEK ONE FEATURES BIGTIME CLASHES – There is no shortage of highly anticipated matchups in college football this weekend, with the prohibitive headliner occurring in Columbus, Ohio at high noon today. The No. 1 Texas Longhorns will pay a visit to the Horseshoe to face the defending national champion Ohio
State Buckeyes, and all eyes will be focused on Longhorns QB Arch Manning. Texas enters the fray as the first top-ranked team in modern college football to open a season as an underdog. The game, which will be televised by Fox, promises to be the most anticipated opener in years, and Manning has his work cut out in his bid to live up to the incredible hype being tossed his way.
In a battle of highly-ranked Tigers, LSU will be traveling to the other Death Valley, this one in Clemson, S.C. The Bayou Bengals are ranked ninth, and the favored Tigers enter as the No. 4 team in the land. A pair of quarterbacks, Heisman hopefuls Garrett Nussmeier of LSU and Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, will duke it out in front of a raucous crowd at 7:30 p.m. on ABC.
In another 7:30 kickoff on ABC – with this one scheduled for Sunday – the sixth-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish will fly to South Florida to face No. 10 Miami. The intriguing QB matchup features ND redshirt freshman C.J. Carr and Georgia transfer Carson Beck leading the Canes. Look for the Irish to rely heavily on running back Jeremiyah Love as they look to upend the U on the road.
The ABC tilt this afternoon at 3:30 could result in an upset special, when unranked Florida State hosts Alabama. The Crimson Tide is a 13.5-point favorite over the Seminoles, who finished the season a year ago with a disastrous 2-10 record. FSU will be counting on QB Thomas Castellanos to provide a spark, while Bama will counter with first-time starter Ty Simpson behind center.
A college football Monday night affair on ESPN at 8 p.m. will pit TCU going to North Carolina. Neither team comes in ranked,
but folks will be tuning in to see Bill Belichick in his debut in Chapel Hill. The Horned Frogs will give the Heels all they can handle in this one.
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REDS SLIPPING, OTHERS GAINING – Since I blabbed on and on about the opening of the college football season, I haven’t left a lot of room to talk about the fortunes, or more accurately, the misfortunes of the Cincinnati Reds in their quest for a wild card spot, but here goes:
After suffering its first series sweep of the season at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers earlier this week and being outscored 18-4 in three games, Cincy hopes the friendly confines of Great American Ball Park will be just that. A critical nine-game homestand will likely tell us if this Reds team is a contender, or more likely, a pretender. It begins with three against the hated Cardinals, and continues with three against Toronto, and the team the Reds are chasing for the third wild card, the suddenly hot New York Mets, who swept the Phillies in a three-game set this past week.
As of this writing on Friday morning, Cincinnati is four games behind the Metropolitans, and perhaps even more concerning, just two games in front of the Giants, and two and a half ahead of Arizona and the aforementioned Redbirds.
If the Reds have any chance of overtaking New York and staving off the other challengers, they need to put together a sustained run in their final 28 games. A 10 or 11-game winning streak would be fantastic, but that is extremely unlikely at this point. Reds fans have suffered through a mostly maddening 2025 season, one in which the team remains consistently
inconsistent. The offense is nonexistent far too often, and signs indicate that will not change anytime soon.
Numerous fans are calling for the Redlegs to bring up hot-hitting prospect Sal Stewart, but even if they do, that move is far from guaranteeing this offense is capable of winning at least 18 or 20 of its remaining 28, which is what it will likely take for a run to the playoffs. It is looking more and more like it’s yet another wait ‘til’ next year scenario developing.
The front office has only itself to blame for the construction of the roster, which continues to be woefully short on having any real power hitters for a ball park made for power hitters. One alarming number is that not a single player on the Reds has as many as 20 home runs. That is just unacceptable when you play half your games in GABP.
Some folks applauded the trade deadline moves made by the team’s president of baseball operations Nick Krall, but as usual, they were far too little, far too late. The excuse of being a small-market club continues, but the same situation doesn’t seem to burden the Milwaukee Brewers. The Cincinnati ownership group is so fixated on turning a profit that winning is secondary, and that is not likely to change anytime soon.
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RADIO LEGEND REMEMBERED FONDLY – Gary Burbank, whose radio career entertained countless folks across the nation, passed away on Thursday at the age of 84.
Burbank spent the majority of his award-winning career (from 1981 to 2007) in Cincinnati on WLW but prior to that successful stint, he was also beloved in Louisville, where he enjoyed many years on both WAKY and WHAS.
Burbank was known as one of the hardest working personalities in radio, and to merely say he was an entertaining and hilarious host would be a massive understatement. His numerous characters showed just what a brilliant and creative mind he possessed and I, for one, was thoroughly entertained for many, many years by his shenanigans on the radio.
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“Very excited to get going. As you know, this time of year I think you all are ready to see a game. You’re tired of hearing me talk, and I’m tired of talking, quite honestly, I’m excited to get going.” – UK football coach Mark Stoops
***** “Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.” – Mark Twain
