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.  

The Huffington Post just reported today that legendary author and actress Jackie Collins recently said, “Good-looking women cannot get elected into office.” She explained that no man wants to think about a woman in politics in a sexual light.   I know one person who would vehemently disagree with that, and his name is Glen Rice.   Granted, before this story I had never heard of this Glen Rice character. As I’ve stressed before, the extent of my basketball player knowledge is limited to the 1995 Houston Rockets Dream Team, with an emphasis on Clyde The Glide and Sam Cassell (only because when my dad shaved his mustache one fateful day back in the mid-nineties, he looked exactly like Sam Cassell, and not in a good way. Also, he wasn’t black. But the image was burned into my brain forever, and Tom has never shaved his luxurious ‘stache since.)

Last week started out with such promise!  The SEC voted unanimously to accept Texas A&M into the conference, Oklahoma began discussion with the Pac 12 about switching conferences with Oklahoma St. likely to follow... the pieces were falling into place for the formation of the super-conferences, which is essential to my dream scenario for a playoff system to crown a true national champion.   Here's how the dream scenario works.  Keep in mind this isn't really that well thought out, it's just an idea I came up with while drinking beers with some of my boys.  But often, the most magnificent ideas are conceived in such ways.   An eight team playoff featuring: The four super-conference champs, the top ranked three teams from the four super-conferences who didn't win the championship, and one non super-conference team (Texas?). The eight top bowl games (according to payouts) host the playoffs. So you'd have round one playing in the Outback Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Capital One Bowl, and Chick-fil-A Bowl. The Final Four, third place game, and championship game all rotate between the BCS bowl games.  OR, the four conference champs all host a first round game and the Final Four stays the same.  Either way, it would be awesome.   Then we get a little hitch in our gettyup.  A tiny, insignificant hitch.  A hitch named Baylor.  

Guess which major conference is the best fit for the Texas Longhorns if the Big 12 crumbles? The SEC. Guess which major conference is the only one the Texas Longhorns aren't considering? The SEC. The reason is simple, the Texas Longhorn administration, would-be bullies, are scared to play in the nation's best football conference. As the Longhorns latest soap opera destination appears to be the ACC -- Chip Brown at Orangebloods.com had this story first -- this means that the Longhorns have four potential destinations right now: remain in the Big 12 with new teams added, leave with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State for the Pac 12, join the ACC, or go independent. I still think the first is the most likely option, but adding Texas would be a brilliant move for the ACC. 

There's only one issue for Texas -- going to the ACC and flying over the SEC would demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that Texas is scared of the SEC. 

Why? Because it makes the most financial sense for Texas to join the SEC.   

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.