Well folks, the 2011-12 University of Kentucky athletic year is upon us. All fall sports are now practicing with each season starting over the next couple weeks. There is plenty going on around here right now, so here are some notes for your Friday:

• Women’s soccer gets it all started today.  Jon Lipsitz begins his third season as UK’s head coach with a road trip to face the Oakland Grizzlies in Rochester, Mich at 7 p.m. on Friday. The Wildcats return nine of 11 starters from last season’s team and will look to convert the work they’ve done over a long offseason into a successful year.

• Today is also a big day for the university as a whole. It is move-in day for all new students and Joker Phillips the UK football team took a break from fall camp this morning to help with the effort. There’s been a lot of talk about how Rock Oliver and the team’s work in the weight room will benefit them on the field, but I think that they were really doing it to make lifting all those mini-fridges easy today. Here is a photo gallery and, in case you were looking for visual proof that Jack Gruenschlaeger (a 6-foot-11-inch, 360-pound walk-on offensive tackle) is a big human being, take a look at the 24th photo in the gallery.

• One guy who I know had to be pretty valuable at move-in day for his heavy lifting ability was freshman running back Josh Clemons. The Georgia native looks more like a linebacker than a running back and could be just the kind of power runner UK has missed the last couple years. New UK beat writer Kyle Tucker wrote about Clemons in today’s Louisville Courier-Journal. It features some quotes from Clemons’ high school coach that show what kind of player he could be.

• Last year at this time, former UK fullback John Conner (aka “The Terminator) was gaining notoriety during HBO’s Hard Knocks for his bone-crunching blocks and Jets’ head coach Rex Ryan’s affinity for the then-rookie. Conner spent last season backing up veteran Tony Richardson at fullback, but this season, the role is all his. The Newark Star-Ledger has a profile of him today and it sounds like he is adjusting nicely.

• Finally, I haven’t been able to link to any of Eric Lindsey’s work in his new gig over at CoachCal.com, but here is his introduction to his mission for the site. We look forward keeping close tabs on CoachCal.com and continuing to work closely with Eric.