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osted by ESPN.com's Chris Low
Times are changing in the Bluegrass.
As I processed Kentucky's season-opening 27-2 beatdown of Louisville on Sunday, I kept coming back to what junior defensive end Jeremy Jarmon told me back during the preseason.
I asked Jarmon, point-blank, how good the Wildcats would be on defense and how good they would need to be this season given the youth and inexperience on offense.
"We feel the defense can perform at a level possibly that no defense has played at around here in a long time," Jarmon said. "We feel we can shut down opponents and feel we can score on defense."
It's one game in (and, yes, it was only Louisville), but it sounds like Jarmon knew what he was talking about.
Kentucky dominated the line of scrimmage and held Louisville to 205 total yards, while forcing five turnovers. And just as Jarmon predicted, the Wildcats didn't just score on defense. They scored twice.
Safety Ashton Cobb returned a fumble 28 yards for a touchdown after defensive tackle Myron Pryor separated the ball from Louisville running back Bilal Powell. The 305-pound Pryor then chugged 72 yards for a touchdown of his own after scooping up a fumble that was caused by linebacker Johnny Williams.
Cornerback Trevard Lindley also set up a touchdown for the Wildcats when he took a pass that was batted into the air by defensive end Ventrell Jenkins and scooted 24 yards to the Louisville 2.
Again, the Cardinals were dreadful on offense, so one game is not a reason to proclaim Kentucky's defense as one of the best in the SEC.
But there's a distinctly different feel about this Kentucky defense, and it starts up front. For the first time since Rich Brooks arrived, the Wildcats look like an honest-to-goodness SEC defensive line with Corey Peters and Pryor in the middle and Jarmon and Jenkins on the outside. They're active, strong at the point of attack and experienced.
That's where you win in the SEC, and all of a sudden, that Oct. 4 trip to Alabama looks all the more intriguing. The Wildcats' next three games are against Norfolk State, Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky, so they ought to be 4-0 going into that contest with the Crimson Tide.
They will also carry the kind of defense into that game that we're not used to seeing at Kentucky, at least not in football.
Props to Jarmon. He told us this was coming.
Chris Low joined ESPN.com in 2007 after 10 years with The (Nashville) Tennessean covering the University of Tennessee and SEC. The Rock Hill, S.C., native lives with his wife in Knoxville and has three sons.
