By LARRY VAUGHT
Perhaps it was a mere coincidence that one day after ESPN.com writer Chris Low rated Kentucky’s football facilities 13th out of 14 Southeastern Conference teams, UK officials showed off changes made to the Nutter Training Facility Thursday.
Walls have been painted a vibrant blue, white and silver and are emblazoned with “Operation: Win” slogans, words from the UK fight song or images of current and past players. One wall shows all UK’s players in the NFL. There is a graphic laying out the Kentucky’s bowl history.
Center Matt Smith first got to see the changes after returning from a mission trip to Ethiopia with coach Joker Phillips and teammates Mikie Benton and Larry Warford.
‘It just blew us away. I was in here left and right taking pictures of everything and going home and showing my family,” said Smith Thursday.
Low was not quite as blown away even though he really had nothing negative to say about UK’s football facilities. Instead, he probably was realistic in his approach that there are no poor facilities in the SEC, including Kentucky or 14th-rated Vanderbilt. Every SEC school upgrades facilities — UK has had eight in eight years including new locker rooms and playing surface at Commonwealth Stadium, new indoor practice turf, upgraded outdoor practice facility with stadium lights, and new team meeting rooms at the practice facility.
Low considered stadium, locker room, weight room, training room, team meeting room, indoor practice complex, coaches’ offices and academic learning center along with how nice they were, how new they were and whether or not they were all self-contained to make life easier for the players when ranking the SEC team facilties.
Here’s what he wrote about Kentucky: “The Nutter Training Facility has been Kentucky’s football home since 1987. New practice fields were added in 2005, and the complex is highlighted by a 9,000-square foot weight room and new locker room. The Nutter Field House includes a 100-yard practice field, and Commonwealth Stadium has a new locker room complex as well as new video boards and audio system.”
What matters most is what impact the facilities have on recruiting. But for a team coming off a 5-7 season with low outside expectations going into this season, the changes UK made to spruce up the training facility could help team morale/chemistry.
“They spent a lot of money and a lot of time doing this. It’s really awesome that the coaches are doing this for us…It shows a huge commitment,” Smith said. “We’ve really talked to the seniors about stepping things up. We don’t want another season like last year. We felt we got too comfortable.”
Got too comfortable? That’s a scary thought considering UK was coming off a 6-7 2010 season, but yet that’s exactly the way the team played — uninspired and like it thought it was better than anyone else thought it was. That attitude doomed UK to a mediocre 2011 and hopefully that mistake won’t be repeated.
That’s why the facilities upgrades are nice, but what will be much more important in 2012 will be an effort upgrade by those who put on the blue and white to play for coach Joker Phillips.
7 Responses to UK football facilities ranked 13th in SEC, but what will matter more is what kind of effort Cats give
Leave a Reply
Blue Zoom Radio Show
Polls
Loading ...Choose Your Favorite!
The facilities really do look nice, but the ranking by Low just adds to the perception of Kentucky football being an underachiever. Recruits read that stuff, too. At some point in time – and this is probably more of a wish – Kentucky fans will DEMAND better attention from UK’s Administration towards football. I’m not talking just facilities, look at the Football Staffs for every other school in the SEC and compare it to UK’s. Positions like High School Relations Coordinator, Alumni Relations Director, Player Development Director, Game Day Coordinator, Community Relations Coordinator, etc. UK has a Director of Football Operations (Business Mgr). And then they smile, pat Joker on the back and say, “Now, go get us 7 wins, 3 in conference at least, or you’re gone!” Good luck, Joker.
People should understand Chris Low is publishing his own arbitrary opinion here. A few specifics are mentioned in a cursory manner, but there are no objective criteria behind his opinion. I have personally visited ten out of the fourteen SEC football facilities. It is certainly true that UK’s facilities are not in the top half of he conference, but OTOH they aren’t 13th either. Sooner or later, everyone will have to cope with the fact that Kentucky is the SEC’s smallest state, and is currently in the grips of a double dip recession. The state legislature doesn’t allow UK to have access to reasonable lines of credit. Under the circumstances, UK is doing everything its Administration can do to keep up. And this is how you can tell the truth. If the economic situation was better, I assure you that UK would now be in the advance planning stages for a new on-campus basketball arena plus an aggressive upgrade program for Commonwealth Stadium.
The pictures of the upgrades look great. It was obviously done with recruiting in mind. Other than the embarrassment that has been the on-field performance, or lack there of, in some high profile games, I have really liked what Joker and Mitch has done with the program the last few years. They have made some great off the field decisions to help improve recruiting and overall football tradition. From the coaching changes, to the uniform changes, to the cosmetic facility changes, I have been extremely impressed.
With that said, I know that there is a lot of improvements that still need to be made. I truly hope that Joker can find a way to get the W’s this season because I like the direction this program is going and I truly would like to see him stick around and be successful (on the field as well as off it).
KY will NEVER be a football school until the people demand it. Get an A.D. & Coach who knows how to run the program plus put the money into it and stop running it like a D-2 program. I’m a basketball fan but there is no reason that the football program at KY is run like a D-2 program. The fans should not put up with this BS. They did for a short with basketball program and then spoke out so why not do the same with football program ?
Not sure what you mean by “until the people demand it”. For one thong, your basic presumption is factually incorrect. UK does not run football “like a D-2 program”. That remark is histrionic. Although UK is obviously not among the SEC’s freest spenders, OTOH UK easily ranks in the nation’s upper third in support of its D-1 football program. This is despite the fact that the Commonwealth is the SEC’s smallest state, and currently in the throes of a double dip recession. Several UK officials have made it clear that they would spend more money on football if the state legislature will grant the school access to reasonable lines of credit. It would be interesting to learn your ideas on how “the people” could “demand” UK to do more while the state legislature will not allow the school to fund those efforts. Should “the people demand” that the school divert funds from academic development and faculty salaries? Should “the people demand” that the school fire an Athletics Director who has now lead UK to a #2 national ranking in the Capitol One ratings for the nation’s best athletics department? What, exactly, would you like for “the people” to “demand”?
I hear a lot of heated words on here talking about esoteric concepts like “the people of KY, UK committment to football” etc. Here’s the bottom line: players win football games. The more games they win, the easier the recruiting gets no matter what your facilities look like; at least within reason. With the recruiting that KY has right now, they cannot compete against the SEC powerhouses and expect to win. But they can win against their own talent level schools and can give a much better accounting of themselves against the Fla’s and Alabama’s of the SEC that they have in the past. By the way, that is also how football programs draw fans!
I have been to many of the other SEC schools Practice facilities and I don’t really see that they are any better than Uk’s. I know that a couple of schools don’t have an indoor practice field (very important) and the Wildcats weight room is as good as any. The new upgrade at Nutter should help. I have to feel that ESPN’s take on Kentucky is more about the record than about facilities.