Published: November 15, 2009 05:43 am      

MARK MAYNARD: Cats still have job to finish 11/15/09

Kentucky did what it needed to do on Saturday against Vanderbilt: It won to become bowl eligible.

Now comes the hard part.

Kentucky has the opportunity to advance the program past just being a bowl qualifier in the next two weeks. It won’t be easy but the Wildcats can become more than just another bowl eligible team with victories over Georgia and Tennessee. They can become a contender to play in an upper-echelon bowl game.

Like I said, it won’t be easy. Remember, this isn’t basketball season where sweeps of Georgia and Tennessee are commonplace.

This is football, where Southeastern Conference victories over anybody not named Vanderbilt are rare.

If Kentucky wants to be taken seriously in the college football world and by those blue-chip recruits that everybody adores, it needs to prove it is not a bottom-dweller in the best conference in the country.

The challenge is great. Next Saturday’s game is Between the Hedges in Georgia. The Cats always seem to play the Bulldogs tough but too often have come up short. A victory even next week turns this season from average to good. Adding another victory against rival Tennessee at home on Nov. 28 would elevate Kentucky to 8-4 and send a message that the program has arrived.

College football is a funny game and one built so much on momentum.

Before Kentucky lost to Mississippi State a couple of weeks ago, the prospects of playing on New Year’s Day seemed to be the talk. Then the Cats were bullied by the Bulldogs in Commonwealth Stadium and those same talkers were now saying UK would be lucky to be in a bowl game at all.

After the 24-13 victory over Vandy, that talk ends. The Cats will be in a bowl game. The question now is whether it will be in the Music City Bowl or maybe a return to the Liberty Bowl. Both of those cities – Nashville and Memphis – will look to have the green that comes with UK’s fanatic fans dressed in blue.

Bowl eligible at Kentucky means you’re going to a bowl.

And if Kentucky does no more than that, the season has to be deemed a success. But the Cats won’t more and the possibility exists for a couple of more victories that would make this season memorable.

Players like Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke give Kentucky a chance against anybody. They are playmakers like teams like Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia seem to routinely sign.

But those players, along with an offensive line that would have to be considered Kentucky’s co-MVPs, makes the odds much better of winning those games that the Cats haven’t won in the past.

Now that UK has clinched a fourth consecutive bowl appearance, it needs to turn up the appetite for more.

The opportunity is there for the taking.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.