NEWS & VIEWS

Gimme five?


So UK's 4-0. So it's the first time since 1984. So what.

So what? (Notice the difference in sentence-ending punctuation compared to the aforementioned "So what.")

So it's a big stinkin' deal.

That's what.

I mean, c'mon!

Can't you see the significance?

Not in 4-0.

But in 1984.

1984, man. Huge year.

Ghostbusters, The Natural, Karate Kid, Gremlins, Splash, Terminator, Police Academy, Beverly Hills Cop, Footloose (the movie and the song). "Owner of a Lonely Heart," "Karma Chameleon," "Jump," "Hello," "The Reflex," "Let's Hear it for the Boy," "Time After Time," "When Doves Cry," "Against All Odds" (the song and the movie).

Plus: Kidd Video, Muppet Babies, The Snorks, Transformers, Voltron. Dynasty, Dallas, The Cosby show, Family Ties, The A-Team.

Apple introduced the Mac. AIDS was discovered. Britain and China agreed on how to close out 99-year lease on Hong Kong in 1997. Gorbie came to power in the USSR. Reginald Kenneth Dwight (Elton John) married Renate Blauel on Valentine's Day. A leak at a Union Carbide gas plant killed 2,000 in India. And, most remarkably, the Detroit Tigers were good at baseball, winning the World Series 4-1.

All right, maybe the Elton John marriage thing was most remarkable.

And yeah, I guess a 4-0 record for the University of Kentucky Football Wildcats really is a significant something after all.

But because of the utter irregularity of the record, not its grandeur.

For since commencing football competition in 1881, UK has achieved a 4-0 record merely 20 times. That is, if you count 4-0-1 in 1923 and 1940. And if you count 1911, when UK toppled Lexington High School, 17-0. (But then, the '11 LHS squad probably had as much talent as this year's UTEP team.)

That equates to a 4-0 start 16.53 % of the time (rounded up) in 121 seasons (in 1943 there was no team due to WWII).

Some memorable 4-0 teams included the 1898 Wildcats, the first team that achieved the mark and the only team in school history that finished unbeaten (at 7-0) and unscored upon. The 1914 team that won by an average score of 67-4 in its first four contests. The '32 team that started out 4-0 and ended at 4-5. And the '50 Bear Bryant team that finished 11-1, losing to Tennessee in the last game of the year before stopping Oklahoma's 31-game winning streak by beating the Sooners in the Sugar Bowl.

Then 4-0 took a 33-year Cat nap.

Kentucky didn't do it again until 1983, a drought 15 years longer than the recently snapped one.

And, of course, the next and final 4-0 start-before this season anyway-was the year in which George Orwell set his famous 1949 novelwhen Big Brother was a literary character, not a television show. Back then, Guy Morriss was playing football (for the New England Patriots), not coaching it. Back then, most frosh on the UK team held up a little closed fist to answer the "How old are you?" question. (In fact, current defensive tackle Lamar Mills was barely alive, only nine days old when Kentucky claimed its fourth victory of the season on 10/6/84).

Still, for the Wildcats, 4-0 has been a piece o' Meow Mix cake compared to 5-0. Only 10 times has Kentucky won the game after 4-0. This Saturday, Kentucky has to defeat Florida, at Florida, to meet the 5-0 mark. Why couldn't Kentucky have scheduled Bethany (W. Va.) College instead? (In 1904, Kentucky beat the now D-III Bethany Bison 6-0 to go 5-0; and just like the 1911 LHS team, this year's Bethany football team has to be as good as UTEP's.)

Tell you why. It's because Kentucky cannot-or does not have to, if it should so choose-"lose" in the state of Florida.

This has nothing to do with the Gators having a "down" year or with Steve Spurrier being gone. Nothing to do with Kentucky having a better record than Florida for the first time in forever. Nothing to do with the Cats being "overdue," last beating UF in 1986.

Nah. The key word is: recount.

That's right. Everybody down there's doing it. Somebody ordered a recount of students still on spring break in Panama City. There was a truck pull-related recount in Madison county along the Georgia border (don't ask). And pretty sure an alligator, endorsed by Janet Reno, thought the number of Keys was off (on the short side) and therefore requested that they be counted again-by machine, naturally.

Of course, all that extra counting makes perfect sense. Because if Floridians keep track of important stuff like presidential elections and gubernatorial primaries, what can they be trusted with?

Certainly nothing as minor as a football game.

So it doesn't matter what the scoreboard reads; if UK doesn't like it, it must be incorrect-even falsified!

Call all the lawyers you know. Call CNN. Call Stephanopolous, Liebermann, and James Baker.

This is 2002. Kentucky Football has its rights. And the American people are entitled to justice.

There are bound to be some misplaced Wildcat touchdowns somewhere in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Consequently the Cats will not concede, not go 4-1. Not even 4-0-1. They will go 5-0 for the first time since 1984 (huge year).

Unless the Supreme Court says otherwise.



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