While we've just arrived at a busy summer of recruiting news and events it won't be long until your Kentucky Wildcats kick off their 2021 season with a game against UL-Monroe. Everyone hopes the '21 season will be much more conventional than the last and it should be.

Cats Illustrated will be breaking it all down every step of the offseason with UK updates but also the latest on opponents.

Here's a first early glance at UL-Monroe with three things we know, three things we're wondering, and some preliminary thoughts on the matchup.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

1. The Warhawks were bad last year. Really bad.

UL-Monroe finished that unconventional 2020 season winless. No wins in the Sun Belt and no wins outside it: 0-10 (0-7). It doesn't get any worse than that. For that reason ULM will enter the 2021 season without expectations. Anything accomplished will be viewed as positive momentum of some sort.

That's good scheduling on Kentucky's part. When you pay to play these Group of Five opponents you generally want to avoid a program peaking or one with an NFL talent at quarterback and ULM was a mess last season.

It's almost hard to overstate how bad ULM was a year ago. They were outscored 42-16 on average and that was in spite of not playing any games against Power Five competition. Just one time did they come closer than 18 points to an opponent.

2. There are some big names on the coaching staff.

ULM hired long-time college football coach and former (like, a really long time ago) Auburn head man Terry Bowden to turn around its program. He tabbed former West Virginia, Michigan, and Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez to serve as offensive coordinator.

Bowden has proven himself to be a quality coach for his work at North Alabama and Akron over the past decade-plus after spending a decade in exile after things fell apart on the Plains. But he's not a miracle worker. He took over a bad Akron program and managed to achieve a degree of respectability, but it was a modest degree of it, and they finished 4-8 in his final year there in 2018.

While Bowden has been in and out of the sport and has had an unorthodox coaching journey to where he's at today, he's never been far from it. In 2019 he was a behind the scenes staffer with Clemson and he obviously has plenty of connections in the sport.

Ron West is ULM's special teams coordinator and defensive ends coach and he's spent a career as a position coach or coordinator at the Power Five level in various spots.

Alonzo Hampton, who along with Rodriguez serves as assistant head coach (and also safeties coach) was a special teams coordinator at Florida State.

Zac Alley was a position coach at Boise State. At only 27 years old he is the youngest offensive or defensive coordinator in college football. There are a couple of other staff members with histories at Clemson.

It's not uncommon when an older college football coach gets a last opportunity somewhere that he fills out the staff with some older, familiar names from more prominent jobs. Bowden seems to have made an obvious attempt to balance seniority and experience with up-and-comers, leveraging his connections in the college football coaching fraternity. We'll see how it works out. They have a lot of work to do.

With Rodriguez running the offense you know the Warhawks will try to go fast, at least at times. Speeding up or slowing down might be one of the few things they're capable of doing with any degree of control because of personnel deficiencies and questionable position groups across the board.

3. ULM struggles to stop the run.

Maybe the Warhawks will improve its rushing defense in the offseason, but it's going to need to improve a lot. ULM surrendered nearly 250 rushing yards per game against that 10-game schedule in 2020.

The numbers were flat out ugly. It started with Army ripping the ULM defense to shreds in the season opener, racking up 439 yards and five touchdowns on 65 carries. Being generous, let's concede the Black Knights can do that to a lot of opponents.

But four of 10 ULM opponents topped 300 yards on the ground. If Bowden studies the tape and wants to fine a silver lining, after burning most of it he can focus on the season finale against Arkansas State. ULM held the Red Wolves to 78 yards on 32 carries — their best effort of the season.

THREE THINGS WE'RE ASKING

1. Is there any hope of a total and complete turnaround for UL-Monroe?

This is a relevant question for Kentucky because it's going to take a total and complete turnaround for the Warhawks to have any hope of upsetting an SEC team. There are some factors, like turnovers, that can be fluky week to week. We can't predict that. But what about splash transfers? Coordinator changes? System overhauls? New approaches? The new coaching staff was outlined above and whenever a program brings in a whole new staff and some new transfers (such as QB Rhett Rodriguez, Rich's son who was formerly at Arizona) there's at least hope of substantial improvement. The culture couldn't have been good with the kind of losing ULM endured last year, and culture is something that can start to change before a talent influx with the right leadership.

2. Who will be the starting quarterback?

Rodriguez probably wouldn't have transferred from Arizona (as a graduate) if he didn't feel like he had an opportunity to be the Warhawks' starter.

He was in for spring practice. He only attempted 16 passes last year for the Wildcats of the Pac-12 and didn't play in 2019. Back in 2018 he was 43/83 for 516 yards, three touchdowns, and two picks. Rodriguez is not a big threat to run and was still largely unproven and inexperienced even after a four-year career at Arizona.

The job won't be given to him but Rodriguez stands a decent shot at winning a competition against Colby Suits (151/248, 1,537 yards, 8 touchdowns, 7 picks last year) and Jeremy Hunt.

Hunt was a junior college transfer before the last college football season and many believed he could have been one of the better offensive players in the Sun Belt but he had results that were similar to Suits, which was not good enough for either of them to feel good about where they stand going into the 2021 season.

3. Will we actually learn anything from this game?

When you factor ULM's across-the-board struggles with the fact that Kentucky might not want to show its hand, as well as perhaps the coaching staff's desire to ease the quarterbacks into the offense with a confidence-building contest, this one might not mean much in the grand scheme of things.

It won't be a surprise if third stringers are in the game with a lot of time left.

FIVE PLAYERS TO WATCH

QB Rhett Rodriguez (Arizona transfer)

WR Malik Jackson (23 catches, 4 TDs)

WR Jared Sparks (Purdue transfer, 59 career catches for 642 yards)

LB Traveion Webster (79 tackles, led team)

DB Austin Hawley (49 tackles, INT)

EARLY MATCHUP ANALYSIS

Simply put, this should be a blowout in Kentucky's favor. No team on ULM's 2020 schedule had close to the talent or depth the Wildcats will have in 2021, and the Warhawks were not competitive against that far inferior competition. It will take a rash of turnovers by Kentucky for the Warhawks to stay in the game. Kentucky's offensive line should control the trenches. On the other hand, ULM's offensive line is a big weak spot so Bully McCall and Josh Paschal should be camping out in the backfield. Even factoring the time until the first game and lots of unknowns for both teams it will be a surprise if Kentucky wins this game by fewer than three touchdowns.

It's a great game to break in a new offensive coordinator and a new quarterback. But resist the temptation to read too much into the results. It's not an exaggeration to say that, on paper at least, this is one of the worst FBS teams Kentucky will have faced in a long time. There's not one facet of the game that ULM can hang its hat on going into the season.