Beech Tree News Network

Just a few hours after she worked the Alabama-Georgia national football championship game, ESPN/SEC Network reporter Laura Rutledge was in Rupp Arena for the Kentucky-Texas A&M basketball game.
She managed to get to Lexington in time for UK’s shoot around before the game and liked the references Kentucky coach John Calipari made to the national championship game won by Alabama in overtime the night before.

“Both of those teams (Georgia and Alabama) fought so hard and coach Calipari made the analogy to his team about playing tougher,” Rutledge said. “He said if you are not dealing with insane mental toughness on both sides of that football game, then somebody would have won it sooner. There was no give on either side.

“That’s just coach Cal showing his chops as a coach and giving respect to both of those programs and trying to challenge his team to have that same level of intensity.”

Rutledge says she knows UK basketball fans are accustomed to the “reload” that Calipari’s team has to make each year and that sometimes it clicks faster than ever. However, she likes what she’s seen from Calipari’s team.

“Watching them in practice (before the Texas A&M game), my goodness, they are overloaded with talent. It’s just getting those guys to play together,” she said. “It’s what makes coach Cal incredible because most coaches could not accomplish what he does trying to get new talent to play together. I do think they will figure it out eventually and hopefully sooner than later for Kentucky fans.
“But the league is much more talented, much stronger. It’s great for SEC basketball. I think the SEC Tournament is going to factor into a bigger picture (with the NCAA  Tournament) more than it has in recent years.”

She knows how talented the top two SEC football teams, Alabama and Georgia, are and will continue to be based on the freshmen that played for both teams — and played well — in the national championship game.

“Obviously, Georgia had a freshman quarterback and plenty of freshman talent. Specifically for Alabama, Nick Saban has never taken a great risk than what he did by bringing (true freshman quarterback) Tua Tagovailoa into that game,” Rutledge said.

“I had watched him in practice at the Sugar Bowl and leading up to the national championship and we knew that he had some packages and could run the offense efficiently, but to put him in that spot (at halftime) in the national title game is just unthinkable. Lots of coaches would not have had the gumption to do that, but it ended up working out. You could see the pure talent Alabama has, but on Georgia’s side the future is so bright, too. SEC football is not going away.”

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