College football has started, Lynn Bowden is on the move, and we're learning more about Kentucky from what the coaches and sources have said.

Here are five Monday thoughts to help you start your week.

Red zone woes need correction

So what makes for a good red zone offense? There's no one set formula but some things always seem to help.

It helps to have a quarterback who has the trust and confidence to make higher-risk throws into tough coverage situations on a short field rather than someone who will check down into dump offs that will get bottled up easily in a short field.

Creating matchup problems are essential. Receivers who can go up and pick passes out of the air or draw pass interference penalties. Hybrid tight ends who can exploit linebackers in coverage. Running backs who can motion into the flat and switch defensive assignments at the last minute.

Of course, the nuts and bolts of a stout rushing attack should help at least at the goal line.

This is something Kentucky will need to correct in the next two weeks before heading down to Auburn. Both UK and Auburn are teams that are comfortable playing low scoring football games so any red zone opportunity will be important.

Last year Kentucky ranked 85th in the country scoring just 80-percent of trips into the red zone. But they made up for that by scoring a lot of touchdowns when they did get points.

Thoughts on the first week of college football

I'm enough of a college football junkie that I got pretty hyped up in advance of the worst opening slate of games in college football history.

Frankly, it was underwhelming. That had nothing to do with the absence of large crowds and less pageantry than usual. It's just the games were tough to get excited about.

Coming into this season one of the things I've been excited about is with far fewer teams we'll get to focus more on programs that we generally don't pay much attention to. Like this weekend, I was excited to watch former Kentucky assistant Walt Wells' EKU team against Marshall, a program that was really fun for someone who grew up on the sport in the 90s.

It was a total blowout in Marshall's favor (and it's far too early to lay any blame at Wells' feet over that).

Another game I was interested in was Army-Middle Tennessee. Again, a total blowout. When you start the day with two blowouts in games like that, admittedly, it sucked some of the air out of the day. (I will say the Black Knights were thoroughly impressive and it's amazing what they've done with their program after a very long period of living in Navy's shadow on the field.)

Memphis-Arkansas State was the highlight of Saturday and while it didn't turn out to be too close it was at least more interesting because you had two teams in the upper echelon of their respective conferences. One of the programs I used to cover on the recruiting side was North Carolina and I've followed Anderson closely since he was the offensive coordinator there. He's done a great job with the Red Wolves but Memphis is just a better team. Quarterback Brady White has been a college football player since 2015 when he was at Arizona State, sort of the Perry Ellis of the sport. He's fun to watch and the Tigers were more physical than I expected but the defense is still lacking and losing Kenneth Gainwell for this year will probably take them down a notch.

Now a week of games to really get excited about

It starts tonight with BYU-Navy. Or, really, is this a continuation of the games from the weekend? This is the game of the year to date and it really is one to get excited about, especially if you love watching the service academy brand of football as I do.

UAB-Miami on Thursday night should be interesting. The Blazers showed some vulnerability in their season opening win over Central Arkansas but they have quietly been one of the sport's best turnaround stories in recent years. Is Manny Diaz the right guy to turn around Miami? I've definitely been skeptical. They won't be my pick to finish first or second in their side of the ACC especially with stud defensive lineman Greg Rousseau opting out for the season after a 15-sack redshirt freshman season. The way they flat out quit on the season at the end of last year was a red flag but we'll see if Diaz's stamp on the program is made this season.

Even though ACC and Big Ten teams start play on Saturday the schedule is fairly light, but it's much better than this past weekend.

Syracuse is going to struggle to slow down Sam Howell and North Carolina. Duke's offense is going to have to be a whole lot better for them to put any kind of scare into Notre Dame in South Bend. I'm pretty high on the Irish this season.

I'm fully expecting Georgia Tech-Florida State to be ugly and I'm not sure if we should expect much from either team in the ACC this year.

Clemson has to retool its offensive line and secondary but going on the road in a near empty Wake Forest stadium shouldn't be much of a test for a loaded squad with two Heisman frontrunners.

But we've got Top-25 teams and even if the games don't stand out on paper, we'll start to get an idea for how some solid squads have handled an unconventional offseason.

Thoughts on offensive line recruiting

While the wide receivers have gotten a lot of the publicity in this recruiting cycle for Kentucky (and for good reason) and the two linebackers are impressive, the more I dig into this offseason line class the more I feel like, once again, it's one of the clear strengths for the Wildcats' recruiting efforts.

Jager Burton could play guard or tackle and is going to be a good one. UK has a good hit rate with in-state linemen lately and there's no reason to think a guy coveted by Alabama and Ohio State won't succeed. As I posted at the House of Blue this weekend David Wohlabaugh and Paul Rodriguez both have some impressive film from the start of their seasons in Ohio prep football.

This group isn't as flashy in terms of the overall rankings other than Burton, a Rivals250 prospect, but John Schlarman will get good long-term production out of the trio he's already got.

Bowden traded to Miami

The big news for Kentucky sports fans from the weekend is that Lynn Bowden has been traded from the Las Vegas Raiders to the Miami Dolphins. The Raiders are taking a loss. They drafted Bowden in the third round in the hopes of turning him into a versatile running back but they're sending Bowden and a sixth round pick to Miami and getting a fourth round pick in return.

The initial reporting included a source who was quoted by The Athletic who cast doubt on Bowden both on and off the field. The story indicated that Bowden was not faring well in pass protection, that he was more interested in cars than football, and that there was a fear he would be a distraction to others in the Raiders' rookie class.

Later, Mike Mayock was quoted as saying it was a football decision and character was not an issue. I'm glad he cleared that up because I've got a pet peeve when it comes to coverage of Bowden dating back to high school. There were certainly whispers of vague "character concerns" and those have only been briefly tapped into, primarily by Kyle Tucker of The Athletic (whose story was good and revelatory, and in which Bowden acknowledged getting away from a rough situation at home). We know about authorities showing up at the home of a Bowden relative early this offseason but he was not linked to any charges. Still, narratives take deep root and sometimes in an unfair way.

If an anonymous source is going to allude to character concerns I'd like to think they could do better than a vague reference to liking cars and fears of him becoming a distraction. What's the real story? If that's all there is, then that can be handled.

My bigger issue has been with the football side. You evaluated Bowden as a running back and I've always been skeptical of that. Former Kentucky player Van Hiles mentioned to me on a podcast and has said elsewhere that running the ball as a quarterback is very different than playing running back. I never got the sense that running back was Bowden's best option in the NFL.

If Bowden is raw at the position you're putting him at, well, how did you only now become convinced that was the issue? He's new to the position! He's always been a bit of a project in that respect just as he was moving to receiver at Kentucky. And as for a lack of breakaway speed, that was never deemed to be a strength at Kentucky.

Hopefully Miami gives him a look as more of an all-purpose threat who can return, catch passes, and move around. Better to happen now than a few months or a year from now I suppose.