UK's season in review

Mark Story / Herald-Leader Sports Columnist

Mark Story

There's only one fitting manner to review the season in which Kentucky became bowl-eligible for a third consecutive year for the first time in 57 years.

Do it in threes.

Three moments to relish

1. Seismographs went crazy when all 310 pounds of Myron Pryor put the capper on UK's defensive smackdown of Louisville by recovering a fumble and lumbering 72 yards for a touchdown.

2. In a Kentucky career filled with game-altering plays, Trevard Lindley's signature moment may have come when he ripped the ball from the hands of South Carolina star receiver Kenny McKinley and took it 28 yards to the house.

3. Mike Hartline and Randall Cobb may have spent 2008 as competitors in UK's quarterback controversy, but they worked together to produce the most dramatic moment of the Cats' season. Down 20-7 to Arkansas with 4:15 left, two late-game, Hartline-to-Cobb TD passes rallied Kentucky to a 21-20 victory over Bobby Petrino and his Hog callers.

Three special-teams meltdowns

(And, the great Wildcat in the Sky knows, Kentucky had more than three in 2008)

1. Captain's log: South Carolina's Captain Munnerlyn took a blocked field goal 81 yards for a touchdown and set up another Gamecocks TD with an 84-yard kickoff return. Those two scores doomed the Cats in a 24-17 loss to Steve Superior.

2. Block party. Florida blocked UK punts on Kentucky's first two offensive possessions to set up Gators TDs and set the tone for Kentucky's 63-5 humiliation in The Swamp.

3. Roughing it. Proving that UK could be every bit as ineffective when the other team was punting, the Cats were called for roughing the Vanderbilt punter not once, not twice, but three times in what became a dispiriting 31-24 home loss.

Three bad breaks

1. Kentucky's expected starting quarterback in 2008, Curtis Pulley, didn't even make it to fall practice after he was dismissed from the UK team after a summer of legal issues.

2. UK's most effective wide receiver, reigning folk hero Dicky Lyons Jr., was lost for the season after suffering a severe knee injury in the season's sixth game (South Carolina).

3. The Cats' most explosive running back, Derrick Locke, was lost for the season after suffering a severe knee injury in the season's seventh game (Arkansas).

Three dragons slayed

Newborns may not live long enough to see UK beat Tennessee, Spurrier or Florida in football, but there were some breakthroughs on the way to the Liberty Bowl.

1. Turns out, playing Louisville in the season opener was quite manageable for Rich Brooks when he had the better team.

2. Bobby Petrino was 4-0 against the Cats — until this season's late-game heartbreak.

3. Harry Truman was in the White House and Bear Bryant roamed the Kentucky sideline the only other time the Wildcats went to bowls in three straight seasons.

Even for a 6-6 team that failed to beat an opponent that finished with a winning record in 2008, ending the UK third-year bowl hex leaves a lasting mark.