Apparently, in the “Bluegrass State”, there is a pissing match brewing (as usual) between the Louisville Cardinals v. Kentucky Wildcats. The argument this time??? What day of Labor Day weekend the annual football game will be played on. Louisville wants to play the game on Monday night, Sept. 1. Kentucky wants to play the game sometime between Thursday, Aug. 28 to Aug. 31. ESPN would like to televise the game on Monday to take advantage of the usualMonday night Football slot (the NFL season won’t start until the following week). Kentucky’s reason for wanting the game at an earlier date: They want recovery time so that they can prepare for…NORFOLK STATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here’s a quote from Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart:

“We’re willing to play that game Thursday through Sunday, and we’ve communicated that to the people at ESPN,” Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart told the Courier-Journal. “We’re not going to play that on a Monday night and give ourselves that short turnaround on a Saturday game. We’re going to have a young team, and we feel it’s in the best interest of our program to guard that prep time and that recovery time.”

Now keep in mind he is complaining about resting for Norfolk State. Not Ohio State, Florida State, Arizona State, Oregon State, or Michigan State. He is talking about Norfolk State, an HBCU, D-1AA program. Yes I know Appalachian State beat Michigan last year, but Appy State has been a dominant team in D-1AA (yes I still refuse to call it Football Championship Series). This is Norfolk State we are talking about. If Kentucky can’t man up on 5 days rest to beat Norfolk State, then they will be screwed for the upcoming SEC slate. Of course, they just might be screwed anyway, considering Andre Woodson and Wesley Woodward aren’t there anymore.

At the end of the day, this is gonna be a battle of mediocre teams, and whatever ESPN wants, ESPN gets. If they wanted this game played a day before Kentucky plays the “mighty” Norfolk State Spartans, it will happen. Money talks, and ESPN has billions of Disney Dollars. So Kentucky, give it up. Play the game on Monday night, have a light practice week, and roll up Norfolk State on that Saturday. One or two extra days to rest up against a D-1AA opponent is not gonna make a difference when you are gonna have the second string in by half time anyway. Oh, and can someone from Kentucky please explain this???