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Hartline picked fine time to step up

During much of this season, Mike Hartline has looked as uncertain in the pocket as a 12-year-old boy at his first middle school dance.

For 55 minutes Saturday night against Arkansas in a game Kentucky had to win, it was more of the same with the sophomore quarterback.

As the minutes ticked down, Kentucky was in a 20-7 hole to the hated Bobby Petrino. On a chilly night, a Commonwealth Stadium crowd of 70,534 emptied toward half-full with at least half the fourth quarter still to play.

You couldn't blame them. With the putrid performance of the UK offense since the beginning of Southeastern Conference play, it felt like the Cats were down 52-0.

Then came a turnaround as stunning and unforeseen as any that has ever happened — positively — for Kentucky in the Commonwealth Stadium era.

When all seemed lost, Hartline did a pretty fair Tim Couch imitation. The Ohio native connected twice on TD passes of 32 and 21 yards to Randall Cobb to lead the Cats to a dramatic 21-20 victory over Arkansas.

"It's really surreal," Hartline said. "Everything went so fast."

As moments go, it had to be as sweet as a watermelon jelly belly for a QB who has been basted over his lack of arm strength and inability to throw downfield.

Just a week ago, the consensus opinion was that Hartline had played his worst game of the year in a disappointing home loss to South Carolina.

"I'm sure his confidence was shaken recently," Kentucky Coach Rich Brooks said of his quarterback. "It was probably shaken by the way things were going earlier (Saturday). For him to hang in there, step up and do this, it's huge. Mike Hartline showed a lot of character and guts."

There were elements of irony in who was on the receiving end of the two most important TD passes Hartline has thrown at Kentucky.

They went to Cobb, the splendid true freshman who also happens to be the back-up quarterback.

When an offense struggles as thoroughly as Kentucky's has against major-conference competition in 2008, the most popular guy on the roster is always the second-string QB.

Fact is, in his brief snippets of action under center, Cobb has shown immense play-making promise.

But Brooks says there have been two reasons the Kentucky brain trust has stayed with Hartline. One is that Hartline knows the passing game — the reads, check-offs and blocking schemes — far better than Cobb.

The other is that on a team playing at least four true freshmen at wideout, "Cobb is the one who has the ability to get open and make plays, even against good coverage," Brooks said.

On a night when he wore No. 12 to honor injured UK folk hero Dicky Lyons Jr., Cobb put his own name in Kentucky football lore.

With the Cats down 20-7, his first touchdown catch came on a corner route. He broke shockingly open.

Hartline, who at times this season has rushed throws and missed receivers when they were open for big plays, this time threw a strike.

Cobb hauled it in. Suddenly, it was 20-14 with 4:15 left. Suddenly, a dead stadium had life.

After the Kentucky defense forced a quick Arkansas punt, UK got the ball back — with a short field — at the Hogs' 35 and 2:39 still left.

Running the two-minute drill as adroitly as his celebrated predecessor Andre Woodson did, Hartline hit running back Alfonso Smith for a 14-yard gain to the 21.

On the next play, Hartline read the Arkansas defense perfectly and threw another strike to an again wide-open Cobb.

"They were playing man-to-man coverage," Cobb said. "Mike Hartline saw it and put the ball in my hands."

After Marcus McClinton cinched the Kentucky victory with a pass interception, the frigid and hearty left in Commonwealth were in full celebration mode.

With its fifth win, UK now stands one victory from the historically rare third straight year of bowl eligibility. Had Kentucky lost amid burgeoning negativity, 4-8 was very possible.

Pretty high stakes for a sophomore quarterback who had been struggling to find his way.

"In a game where the only way to win it was to throw it, he made the plays necessary to win the game," Brooks said of Hartline. "I hope this does a lot for his confidence and others' confidence in him."

Sports has little better than when the doubted guy becomes the hero.

Mike Hartline lived it.

"Unbelievable," he said. "Even in high school, I never had anything like this."

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