Three takeaways from Kentucky football’s thrilling upset of No. 6 Ole Miss

Three takeaways from Kentucky’s 20-17 upset of No. 6-ranked Ole Miss on Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

1. Call him Mark ‘Riverboat Gambler’ Stoops

After Kentucky’s 13-12 loss to then-No. 1 Georgia, UK coach Mark Stoops took a fair amount heat from Big Blue Nation for punting on a fourth-and-8 near midfield with three minutes remaining. Never mind that Stoops’ decision was a sound piece of football strategy, by the time the Cats got the ball back there was but a few seconds left in what turned out to be a one-point defeat. Said the critics: To beat a team you have to take a few chances.

Saturday in Oxford, Stoops took that chance. Facing a fourth-and-7 on his own 20-yard line with around three minutes remaining, trailing the Rebels 17-13, Stoops rolled the dice. And came up big. Bigger than big, actually. Quarterback Brock Vandagriff unloaded a bomb down the left sideline that speedy wide receiver Barion Brown hauled in against tight coverage at the Ole Miss 45. By the time the Rebels took Brown to the ground, the junior had reached Ole Miss’ 17-yard line.

Two plays later, UK tight end Josh Kattus was falling on a Gavin Wimsatt fumble in the end zone for a touchdown. Alex Raynor’s extra point made it 20-17 visitors with 2:25 to go. To be sure, there were some tense moments after that — a 42-yard Ole Miss completion on a fourth down of its down; Cade Davis’ 48-yard field goal that sailed wide left with 48 seconds remaining — but it was the fourth-down call and execution that won the game for the Cats.

Afterward, offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said he felt like Ole Miss would play man-to-man coverage on the play. The Rebels did, in fact. Making his first road start, much less his first SEC road start, Vandagriff saw the one-on-one matchup and threw a catchable ball. And after being hit with a drive-killing unsportsmanlike conduct penalty earlier in the quarter, Brown did the rest.

And going for it on fourth down deep in your own territory?

Said Stoops, “I felt like at that moment, the way we were playing, in the red zone we were playing pretty good. (If UK’s fourth-down play failed) we could try and hold them to three. And I felt like we could get a one-on-one. So we went for it.”

Said Kiffin, “I have to credit Stoops, that’s not anything he’s probably ever done in his life.”

2. Kentucky ‘played it our way’

Coming into the matchup with the high-scoring Rebels, Mark Stoops knew his team had to (a) put together long offensive drives that would keep Lane Kiffin’s offense off the field as much as possible and (b) limit the Rebels’ habit of hitting explosive plays.

For the most part, the Cats did both.

“We played it our way,” Stoops said.

Of Kentucky’s four first-half possessions, three lasted at least 10 plays. One went for 15. There was a 66-yard drive and an 81-yard drive. It was a key reason why Kentucky took a 10-7 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Stoops said afterward that there would be a lot of “dirty yards” in the game and the Cats got their fair share of those yards. Yes, Kentucky only rushed for 93 yards, but they outgained the Rebels on the ground 93-92. Hamdan used Wimsatt on several wildcat runs to stay out of negative yardage plays. Demi Sumo-Karngbaye ran hard. So did Jamarion Wilcox. That helped set the tone at the line of scrimmage and produced those extended drives.

On the other side of the ball, Brad White’s defense did allow four passes of 30 or more yards, including the 48-yard touchdown pass from Jaxson Dart to Tre Harris on a fourth down that gave the Rebels a 17-13 lead in the third quarter. There was also that 42-yard pass on a fourth down that put Ole Miss in position for the field goal attempt that would have tied the game.

Still, Kentucky never let the Rebels get on one of their patented rolls where matters snowball for the opponent. Ole Miss’ longest running play was 17 yards. No. 1 nationally in total yards per game at over 600 per contest, Kiffin and Company were held to 363.

Kentucky did so without its best defensive back, cornerback Maxwell Hairston, who watched the game from a hospital bed while recovering from an infection. Said UK’s JQ Hardaway afterward, “Next man up. We prepared for this moment. ... We really played for Max out there.”

3. The win puts a different spin on the season

As they say, “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas.” And if it were not for that still puzzling 31-6 loss to visiting South Carolina in Week 2, the Cats would be 4-1 right now, with that one loss coming by one point to the then-No. 1 team in the country.

Kentucky can’t get that South Carolina game back, of course, but it did prove that it can not just compete against the best teams in the country, it can beat those teams. On their home field. That doesn’t mean Kentucky will win at Florida on Oct. 19, or Tennessee on Nov. 2 or Texas on Nov. 23. It does mean that it has the talent and resolve to play with those teams.

After doing some gleeful body surfing in the joyous Kentucky locker room, Stoops stressed that his team had continue to improve since the setback at South Carolina. That showed in the way the Cats physically matched up against Georgia. It showed in the way they took care of business against Ohio. And it surely showed Saturday in front of a hostile crowd on the road against a team many were saying had a chance to win a national championship.

We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out. It says there that the Oct. 5 open date comes at a good time. The first five games, three of them conference games, have been grueling. And after Saturday’s triumph, the Cats can get back to work with a lot more confidence that they can tackle what lies ahead.

SEC football final: Kentucky 20, No. 6-ranked Ole Miss 17

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