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.  

A little over two years ago Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair was murdered in a downtown Nashville condo. The violent murder still lingers in the city of Nashville. McNair wasn't an isolated sports star adrift from the city; he was a popular pro athlete who called Nashville home and was embraced by the community. Even two years later his death still stings. McNair, who led the Titans to many big wins in Jacksonville -- most notably the AFC Title game in 2000 -- doesn't have the same popularity in north Florida.

Two days ago the Titans opened the season at division rival Jacksonville. The game was a far cry from the AFC championship game in 2000. Two mediocre football teams battled in the Florida sun for three hours before the game came to a merciful 16-14 end. The Jaguars triumphed on the field, but they didn't triumph in the pregame tailgate.

That's because some Jaguar fans set up a skeleton at a tailgate wearing a bloody and torn Steve McNair jersey.

The picture, which arrives via email from a reputable source, included these details: "A very close friend who lives in Jacksonville that is a big Jaguars fan took the photo Sunday before the game. He asked me who #9 belonged to. When I replied he apologized for the classless Jag fans." 

As we enter week three of the college football season, we're starting to find out which teams are for real and which teams may have some serious problems as they head into the meat of the season. OKTC takes a look at the top question marks facing a few SEC squads this week, and we predict each game of the weekend. What did we learn from weeks one and two, and what's still left to be determined?

Two To Watch

Tennessee at Florida (3:30 ET/CBS) - As we enter the middle of September, it's safe to say that both Florida and Tennessee have proved to be pleasant surprises in pairs of games against non-conference opponents. In Week Two, Tennessee was impressive in a dominant win over Cincinnati. In a game that many had circled as a potential upset, the Vols were able to withstand a few early miscues and rode yet another strong performance by sophomore QB Tyler Bray to an easy win in Knoxville. Florida hasn't displayed many of the hiccups common to a new coaching regime so far in 2011. Their offense has been efficient and their defense spectacular in wins over Florida Atlantic and UAB. The Volunteers will prove a tougher test for Will Muschamp and Charlie Weis, but the ease with which they dispatched their first two opponents tells us a bit about the revival in Gainesville. They haven't had any bumps in the road yet.

Someone at the front of the crowd decides that it is time, and the door swings open. The players rush out into the cool mountain air, to the sounds of cheerleaders and the sweet aroma of a dozen different perfumes blending into one. One by one the players pass through into the night, pausing only to tap the sign that hangs over the door: PUSH DOWN THE WALL TODAY!

*****

The first thing you notice about the locker room is the smell. It hits you on your second step into the room, an odor strong enough to deter the casual onlooker and keep the place sacred. It isn’t a dirty smell, not exactly, but one of shoes and sweat and hormones.

It is August, and I am inside the Brewer locker room.  Practice has just ended, and junior Jalen Chatman sits on one of the wooden benches, talking to me about the upcoming season.  Chatman is a linebacker who moonlights as a fullback in the Patriots’ power sets.  He is about 5’9” and 210, just the right size to put the wood on someone, as they say around here.  The number 42 has been carefully shaved into the side of his close-cropped hair.      

If there is one team he dreams of beating, it is the Hartselle Tigers.     

I ask him why.  What is it about Hartselle?  

“Because nobody thinks we can beat them.  If we can beat them we can beat anybody.”  

I prod further.  

“What would it mean to you to win that game?”

Slowly but surely Texas's arrogance, me-first attitude, and bullying nature has isolated it from other schools in college football. The Longhorns desperately want all the benefits of independence without the hindrance of actually being independent. For years Oklahoma and Texas A&M, the two rivals that helped to make Texas the program that it is, took the incessant provocation from Texas's insistent ambition without response. Other strong schools sick of being held under Texas's boot left. Arkansas leapt to the SEC, Nebraska and Colorado joined the Big Ten and the Pac 12, all of these schools recognized an immutable truth -- Texas would bully them forever. 

This left Texas with two major program allies: Texas A&M and Oklahoma. 

See, the NFL realized long ago that a league was only as strong as its weakest link. In order to be good, all the teams have to be competitive; there has to be the possibility of anything happening in any given week.  

Alright.  

I wanted to save my wedding day story for the week of my anniversary, but because my very opinionated boss who I won't say by name (editor's note: "boss" is definining what I do very broadly) decided to write a few paragraphs slamming the fall ceremony, it's been bumped up to...now.  

I got married on a Saturday. In October. In Birmingham, Alabama. And BOTH Alabama and Auburn had home games that day.  

No, I wasn't crazy, and no, I wasn't pregnant, as Clay alleges is the only acceptable reason for a fall wedding.  

However, my "I need money to live" job allows for very limited time off during a point that would have otherwise been convenient for us. I mean, this writing gig is awesome but a girl's gotta eat, ya know? Also, my husband and I got engaged three months after we started dating and were married seven months later over a built-in break for a conference thing at work. Those seven months allowed us just enough time to plan wedding crap and find, buy, then move into our house.

Cam Newton is the most hated man in the South since General William Sherman. The union general burned Atlanta, all Cam did was shine a light onto the darkest corners of the 2010 SEC football season. As we wait on the NCAA to issue an official ruling, the vast majority of the fans in the SEC, and elsewhere, believe that Cam was paid last year. But now Cam Newton is in the NFL and his performance in his rookie debut was otherwordly, passing for 422 yards Newton came up a couple of feet short of sending his Carolina Panthers into overtime against the Arizona Cardinals.

The scary thing about Cam Newton's performance? It came nearly nine months to the day since he led Auburn against Oregon on the same field. And Newton was much better against the Cardinals than he was against the Ducks. Put simply, there is no limit to how good Cam Newton can become as an NFL quarterback.

During the draft Warren Moon came on our 3 Hour Lunch radio show here in Nashville and said Cam had the potential to be the greatest quarterback in NFL history. At the time we took the statement as wild hyperbole. After watching the first game, during which time Newton put up the greatest rookie passing game in NFL history, that opinion doesn't seem so outlandish any longer.

I watched college football for twelve consecutive hours on Saturday. It was glorious, pure Heaven, the kind of moment when you breathe deeply and think: Life doesn't get much better than this. You know who wasn't thinking that? The poor bastards who had to attend a wedding on September 10th. The people who felt the worst of all? How about Mississippi State fans frantically checking their phones to see what was going to happen down the stretch of the Auburn game.

This picture is from a Memphis wedding. There is only one reason why there should ever be a fall wedding -- your bride is pregnant and you can still fool her parents in to believing that she wasn't pregnant when you got married.

In fact, "Dude, she's pregnant," is an acceptable reason to do just about anything. (I'll allow a limited exception for a wedding that takes place on a bye week, but even that is likely to inconvenience all your friends who don't happen to root for the same team as you). Also, if your bride is the kind of person who is worried about the game being a "distraction" and won't allow the game to be shown? Run in the opposite direction. Consider it the equivalent of following up Shaquille O'Neal, you're never going to satisfy her.  

Assuming she's not pregnant, there is no reason that can justify requiring your friends to give up one of the glorious fall weekends -- there are only 12! -- for a wedding. You have forty weeks without college football in the South. If those 40 weeks don't work, you really shouldn't be getting married. 

On to the Starting 11.  

By Bryan Harvey

When you're young, people tell you all sorts of stories that focus on identity, both the hiding of it and the revealing of it. I grew up reenacting scenes from popular Robin Hood folklore in the woods behind my parents' house. I would do this with friends, cousins, and siblings, and in no strange twist of fate, the most popular roles were the title character, Little John, Will Scarlet, King Richard, and Friar Tuck, and pretty much in that order; and if those parts were all taken, as a kid you'd rather make up some part that never existed in the original than play one of the villains. No one wants to be the Sheriff of Nottingham or Prince John. Nobody. Which is why this past weekend's Boise State-Georgia game was so damn depressing.

You can know the truth but not want to face it. You can know that there are not enough heroes in the script for everyone to play one and still think there's no way you're going to get stuck with playing the villain, but you will. Everyone can't be good all the time.