Bitter rivals will collide at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium on Saturday afternoon, as the Louisville Cardinals welcome the Kentucky Wildcats to town. Both of these teams feature new head coaches. Joker Phillips takes over for the retired Rich Brooks at Kentucky. Brooks stopped by a Wildcats’ practice last week, and Phillips let the media in on Brooks message to the players. Last season, Kentucky started strong but faded late to finish 7-6, including a bowl loss to Tennessee. There is reason to believe that improvement is possible, as many key contributors are back in the fold.

As for Louisville, it is now led by Charlie Strong, who excelled as the defensive coordinator of the Florida Gators. The Cardinals went to nine consecutive bowl games, culminating with a 2007 Orange Bowl victory over Wake Forest, but the program declined quickly under Steve Kragthorpe. What Strong inherits from Kragthorpe is a 4-8 team which won just once in Big East action a year ago. For that reason, Strong made a clear statement upon being hired.

Last year the Cardinals just stunk it on the defensive side of the ball and they may have some struggles in the early going of this year as well. Kentucky should be firing on all cylinders even in the early going as they roll over their cross town rival Cardinals.