Remember when Kentucky was 2-3, did not have a healthy quarterback and even many Kentucky fans had lost hope about this season.
Fast forward to Saturday when Kentucky ran for 517 yards and embarrassed Louisville for a second straight year by totally dominating the Cardinals.
Even Kentucky coach Mark Stoops admitted the switch to Lynn Bowden at quarterback and winning five of the last seven games with Bowden rushing for over 1,000 yards was a “special” feat for his team.
“Just proud. I think the team is proud of themselves in that it’s hard. You go in there during that stretch and we play, what we’re doing, again, going on the road, those SEC teams, we weren’t healthy but we didn’t play very good and I didn’t coach them very good and it’s tough,” Stoops said.
“We’re back in there Monday (after a Saturday game) and back in there Tuesday. It’s a long season and it’s just too easy to give in, you know what I mean, and we will not have a defeated mentality. Those guys won’t do it. They just won’t.
“Coaching staff, we’ll look for all options to continue to grind away and improve and get better and that’s on them. It’s a fun group, and I think that’s what they are most proud of. Not perfect.
“But when you get scarred up and you get beat up and you pick yourself back up off the mat and go back out there and do that and compete like this, then, you know, that does make them feel good and it should.”
Yes it should because most of the national media expected a Kentucky collapse after last year’s 10-3 season because of the departure of linebacker Josh Allen, running back Benny Snell and others — and that was before quarterback Terry Wilson went down with a season-ending injury in week two.
“Par for the course, right. I mean, really, I think we have out-kicked what they have predicted every year the last four or five years,” Stoops correctly noted after the Louisville win. “We are really not worried about that, you know. We really don’t need that for motivation.
“We’re pretty motivated in what we do and how we go about our business and we feel pretty good about it. A lot of teams can say ifs and buts. Everybody does, right. That’s the game and I could promise you, we’ve been through our fair share and fought our way out of it.
“If you could go back and put that prediction, I like nine or 10.”