Rivalry here. Fans wanted.

It's time for the Kentucky game, and as always, my good friend and somewhat trusted associate Stanley Q. Studmuffin is quite excited. In fact, if you asked him yourself, he might even say that he's "geeked."\n"Did you hear that the smartest man in Kentucky moved to Indiana?" he asked.\n"No," I replied.\n"Yeah. It lowered the IQ of both states."\nYes, it takes a rivalry game for a fan to take the time to think of such cleverness. And as far as rivalries go, this is one of the most tightly contested -- IU leads the overall series 17-15-1, and five of the past eight games have been decided by a touchdown or less.\nBoth teams have similar histories -- they've only won their respective conference titles two times each. Kentucky's been to 10 bowl games. IU has been to eight. \nKentucky's one advantage is a national championship won under Bear Bryant in 1950. Their disadvantage is the fact that they have spent a good deal of time in recent vintage on probation (though this seems to be a prerequisite for playing football in the SEC, unless your name is Vanderbilt).\nThe most obvious similarity, of course, is that both schools are "basketball schools."\nYet there is one strange difference between UK football fans and IU football fans -- Kentucky's fans tend to show up to games, while IU's fans don't. \nFor instance, 70,136 fans sat through a thunderstorm to watch last year's game at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington. The previous year, an Expos-esque crowd of 26,449 showed up to Memorial Stadium for the final game in the glorious career of Antwaan Randle El. (Stanley insists that another 20 would have showed up had they known that it was also going to be the final appearance of Cam Cameron at Memorial Stadium). \nThere's even a story on the Kentucky football Web site about a kid who was selling lemonade and cookies to raise money for season tickets. If that happened here, social services would probably stop by the parents' house to see if they had any idea what their son was up to. \nWhy this disparity in fan bases?\nRecent history probably has a lot to do with it. It has been 10 years since an IU bowl appearance, and Kentucky has won seven of the past eight games in the series. At such a success rate, cheaper ticket prices (sure, they are the cheapest in the Big Ten, but MAC rates would be more appropriate) might attract more fans. Quite frankly, so would beer. Don't hold your breath for either of those developments.\nFans who choose not to go to this game might be missing a lot, though. For instance, they'll be missing a lot of quarterback, as in Wildcats 260-pound signal-caller Jared Lorenzen.\nLorenzen isn't easy to take down, of course -- he's bigger than half of the IU defensive line. And while you would expect a guy his size to have the mobility of say, Bernie Kosar, (who in his heyday moved with the speed of a unicyclist pedaling uphill) Lorenzen can make guys miss in addition to making them bounce off of his frame. Much like the Ghostbusters fighting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, it's going to take a team effort to bring him down.\nWill they be able to?\nGuess you'll just have to come see for yourself.