The Kentucky Wildcats are number two in the nation in recruiting. 

In football. 

Really, this has happened. 

Stop with all your -- "But it's June!" -- Tweets and consider the accomplishment of first year head coach Mark Stoops. I don't care what month it is, did you ever think Kentucky would be number two in the country in football recruiting?

Put simply, Mark Stoops has done a remarkable job snagging talent early in his Kentucky tenure. 

Yes, Kentucky owes much of its rankings prominence to the fact that the Wildcats have more commits than many schools, but so does Texas, your erstwhile number one recruiting class in the country. In fact, Kentucky's 17 recruits actually have a higher average star rating than Texas's 19 recruits.  

Stop with your a lot changes between now and February Tweets and emails as well. Actually, a lot doesn't change. Over time, eighty percent of all verbal commitments are honored. So, yes, some recruits change their minds, but they're a substantial minority of the cases. Recruits who change their minds just get more attention than the recruits who make a commitment and stick with it throughout the year.

At the absolute worst, Kentucky should finish with a top twenty football recruiting class, something they've never managed before in their gridiron history.  

For a long time ESPN ruled as a cable sports monopoly. Sure, there were challengers to the ESPN throne, but they did dumb things like hire Tom Arnold and try to mix sports and other programming -- Turner Sports. For much of the last 15 years ESPN has been the unrivaled king of the cable sports marketplace. That's what happens when you bring in six billion dollars a year in cable subscription fees. Remember, every one of us that has cable or satellite is paying around $5 a month just for ESPN. That makes ESPN the single most expensive channel on cable today.

With additional monthly fees for ESPN 2, ESPN U, ESPN News, and ESPN Classic, we're shelling out around $10 a month, $120 a year, for ESPN programming. ESPN then uses our monthly subscriber fees to pay big money for television rights fees which allows ESPN to demand more money from cable companies. Witness ESPN's massive $1.9 billion dollar a year Monday Night Football deal. It's a neverending circle of cable sports dominance that most cable subscribers don't even recognize because cable bills aren't broken down by individual station cost.

At least so far. 

The best part of ESPN's business model?

Non-sports fans are paying as much for ESPN as sports fans. 

That means your grandmother, aunt, and non-sports infatuated brother, are all paying the same amount for ESPN as you are. That's right, non-sports fans who don't watch a single game all year subsidize the cost of ESPN programming for those of us who are sports fans. If you're thinking to yourself, wait a minute, why doesn't a la carte cable programming exist, you're asking a question that makes ESPN really, really nervous. A la carte cable programming is the greatest threat to ESPN out there today.   

Satan must be pretty busy down there these days. Not only is he mass-producing Cowbells and Crocs, but now he’s working over-time making short shorts.  

(Just to clarify, these are made for people who possess male genitalia. I own shorts with a longer inseam than that. Seriously. Let’s ge tahold of ourselves here, guys.)

If you haven’t heard about them already, allow me to introduce you all to Chubbies: the latest obnoxious trend for men sweeping the nation andmaking us long for the days when our biggest enemy in menswear was a bejeweled Ed Hardy V-neck viciously raping our eyeballs. Now there’s an aggressive new contender in the running, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. In fact, it’s taking over. Here's proof:

Okay, it's mailbag time.

Apologies for falling a day behind on part two of the bachelor party column, but now I'm caught up and it's mailbag time. Meaning you get two long articles from me this Friday to help the weekend get here faster than you could have hoped. (I know you're not working today).

Props to Gabby Douglas for her gold medal win, she's our beaver pelt trader of the week.

Without further ado, on to the mailbag:

Remember when YouTube was created and we all said, "This is awesome now anyone can make videos."

And remember when you were a kid and you thought, "Man, nothing could ever make the Tennessee-Alabama rivalry seem lame. Nothing!"

Then YouTube existed and this video about Tennessee and Alabama, "Overcome the Tide," was made.

And you've basically got to question all of your life's assumptions now.

I didn't think it was possible for anyone to make a worse video than the Alabama fan singing "Call Me Maybe."

Then this happened.

Google searches provide the ultimate window into the soul of America.

Our search history reveals more about us than any other online activity. Back in the Civil War, Walt Whitman waxed eloquent about hearing America sing. Well, in the 21st century, we can all see what America's searching for. And as a country, well, we're a weird bunch of people.  

Right at 13% of OKTC's site traffic comes from search and this search traffic is almost 100% from the United States. That's a low search percentage for a website, but I happen to believe that sports search traffic is virtually valueless. That is, people who stumble on the site via these searches aren't likely to return again and again by choice.

Our most frequent Google search traffic at OKTC makes sense, they're all variations of Outkick the Coverage -- OKTC, outkick coverage, Outkick -- or variations of my own name. But once you get to the bottom of the top ten things get weird in a hurry.

How weird?

The 2012 Summer Olympics is the latest evidence that sports are immune to DVRs. Even when, interestingly, the network is effectively a DVR airing taped events. Since Friday's tape-delayed debute of the opening ceremonies NBC has been catching social media heat for its decision not to carry those ceremonies and other events live on its family of networks. Yes, you can stream all the events live online, but a tiny fraction of sports fans are actually doing this.

(Raise your hand if you've been consuming the Olympics live online at the expense of on television. If you are, you're an extreme, extreme minority).

Instead, every night, tens of millions of us are sitting down in front of our televisions -- even when many of us know the outcome -- and tuning in to the Olympics in record numbers.

I think the reason is simple -- American society craves shared experiences. That's because increasingly, our shared experiences are rare. How many of you watch a favorite television show live? I don't. I can't tell you the last time I watched one of my favorite shows as it aired live. I watch everything on my DVR. How many times have you had a conversation with a friend, a friend that you know watches the same show as you, and began it like this, "Have you seen the newest "Mad Men" yet?"

I guarantee you every single person reading this column right now has begun a conversation like this.

My Analysis of the Dream Team v. the Self-Esteem Team, by Kobe Bryant

In 1992, the Dream Team, made up of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, John Stockton and Christian Laettner, took on the world at the Olympics in Barcelona.  Not only did the team win gold, it defeated opponents by an average of 44 points.

Twenty years later, Team USA (the “Self-Esteem Team”) includes Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Andre Iguodala, LeBron James, Kevin Love, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Deron Williams, and me, Kobe Bryant. 

A few weeks ago, I told reporters that this year's team could beat the Dream Team because it consists of a “bunch of racehorses, players who are incredibly athletic, while the Dream Team consisted mainly of players at the tail end of their careers.”  Dream Team members responded, in part, by stating, “LOLOLOLOLOL.” 

Instead of dismissing my comments out of hand, allow me to explain the details I considered in arriving at my conclusion.  First, I compared the two squads based on major college and NBA achievements, arriving at a preliminary score.  Then, I added and deducted points based on conduct on and off the court.  Turns out, it came down to a tie-breaker, with the overtime win going to the Self-Esteem Team.  Here’s how it all played out:

It's mailbag time and I'm writing it with a bad case of poison ivy, the first of my life.

You know what the only thing worse than getting poison ivy is? Being responsible for your four year old getting poison ivy. And then having that poison ivy show up while you're on a Las Vegas bachelor party trip.

Before we get any further along, I've been inundated by emails and Tweets seeking an update on how negotiations for my fight against old man LSU fan Billy Ayo are proceeding. And I regret to inform you that Billy has not replied to my time and place conditions.

He has, however, -- as many of you pointed out -- pulled a Sarah Palin and taken to Facebook to voice his opinion on the matter.

Quoth Billy:

"I would like to thank everyone for having so much fun at my 15 minutes of fame. Too the asshole that made this all happen I thank you. Wish I could remember his name. Easy to forget unimportant people."