Benny Snell: ‘Put the ball in my hands. Put the team on my back.’

The game was tied for what felt like weeks.

The cold wind was so strong and so aggressive that it had almost become another defender.

Struggling for much of the night, Kentucky’s offense took the field with 80 yards between it and the end zone. The players got together and tried to speak it into existence.

“It was going to be a championship drive,” UK quarterback Terry Wilson said they said all huddled up. “That’s what we call it.”

Running back Benny Snell called it something else after No. 14 Kentucky dropped Vanderbilt for a third straight time, 14-7, on Saturday night at Kroger Field.

“That’s Benny Snell football,” Snell smiled. “Twenty carries, 30 carries, plus. He’s going to make it happen. That’s what I want. I want it in my hands.”

It was hard to argue with the junior, who had 169 yards on 32 carries for the Cats, who moved to 6-1 on the season and 4-1 in the Southeastern Conference, becoming bowl eligible for a third consecutive season.

“Put the ball in my hands,” Snell said. “Put the team on my back.”

He did just that, scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 8:04 to go on a 7-yard run. He had all but six yards on that 80-yard drive.

“Benny bled us in the second half and he found some things that he couldn’t find in the first half and did a good job running,” Vanderbilt Coach Derek Mason said of the UK running back, who had his fourth 100-yard rushing game of the season and 16th of his Kentucky career.

Snell starred on offense, and the usual suspects did the same for the UK defense, which has allowed 20 or fewer points in all seven games this season, the first time since 1955. The Cats have held three SEC foes to 10 points or fewer, the first time that’s happened since 1979.

“We said that to the defense today, going into the game, that every yard and every point was personal; it means something to us,” Kentucky Coach Mark Stoops said. “We’re trying to do our best to shut them out, hold them as best we can. Believe we would have a good chance if we didn’t turn the ball over.”

Vanderbilt’s lone touchdown came on a 29-yard scoring pass to C.J. Bolar from Kyle Shurmur, capitalizing on a fumble by Wilson on the Cats’ opening drive to go up 7-0 midway through the first quarter.

Since the season opener when Central Michigan managed to score 20 points off Cats miscues, no other opponent had capitalized off UK turnovers.

“We don’t put a ball on the ground on that first drive and it’s a different football game, I really believe that,” offensive coordinator Eddie Gran said. “There’s no excuses for that. We can’t do that anymore.”

On UK’s next drive, a Wilson lateral to Lynn Bowden — that wasn’t supposed to be a lateral — didn’t connect and Vanderbilt again pounced on the mistake at the Cats’ 40-yard line.

This time the Kentucky defense held, though, forcing a Vanderbilt three-and-out. The Cats forced three-and-outs in four of the Commodores’ final five drives of the first half.

Kentucky held Vanderbilt to 284 yards of offense, but just 68 of that came via the run game, where the Commodores managed just 2.2 yards per carry while playing without leading rusher Ke’Shawn Vaughn.

Vanderbilt (3-5, 0-4) had a chance to break the tie early in the fourth quarter, but on a fourth-and-1 at the Kentucky 16-yard line, nose guard Quinton Bohanna both forced and scooped up a Jamauri Wakefield fumble.

That play set up the Snell heroics 80 yards later. The junior and the ground game were the bulk of the Cats’ offense, gaining 280 of the 298 total yards on the ground.

Wilson connected on three of his nine pass attempts for 18 yards, which included a 5-yard touchdown pass to Lynn Bowden to tie it at 7-7 in the second quarter. Bowden caught all three of Wilson’s completed passes.

Vandy had one final chance to tie it with 2:10 to go but the drive stalled near midfield when Shurmur was sacked for a loss by Josh Allen and fumbled the ball. It was recovered by fellow senior Mike Edwards.

Kash Daniel, who broke his left hand and was wearing a cast on that fourth-and-1 fumble play, led the Cats with 11 tackles, including two for a loss. Edwards added nine tackles.

Allen finished with eight tackles, two sacks and a pass breakup. Former Henry Clay standout Davonte Robinson had a career-best seven tackles, including one for a loss.

It wasn’t always pretty, but Stoops didn’t care how it looked.

“I’m not going to apologize for sitting here knowing we have six wins and know we can play a lot better and are striving to play better,” the coach said. “Nobody in that locker room is satisfied.

“I told them, ‘don’t ever apologize, hold your head high, you’re a 6-1 football team on your way moving up into the top 10.’”

This story was originally published October 21, 2018 at 12:53 AM.