‘We’re about to go win this.’ Something shifted for UK football at Missouri.

Coaches talk all the time about there being no magic wand, no magic play, no magic scheme.

But there are magic moments.

Kentucky acknowledged there were more than a few of them in the No. 11 Cats’ improbable comeback win at Missouri on Saturday.

Coach Mark Stoops knew it when he felt it.

“Something changed a bit Saturday: that growth, another step, however you might say it,” he tried to explain on Monday as he started preparation for UK’s game against No. 6 Georgia (7-1, 5-1 Southeastern Conference) on Saturday at Kroger Field.

“I don’t know how to put it into words, but I just felt like that truly everybody said that somehow, someway they’re going to do their part to help us win this game.”

Like some sort of pigskin pixie dust, the magic moments stuck with Kentucky’s players after the game, after the celebration had settled down a bit.

For Jordan Jones, it was the moment Kentucky’s offense, which had been struggling mightily the past few weeks, walked off the field dejected after an interception with 2:38 left to play had seemingly sealed Kentucky’s fate.

The linebacker grabbed fellow senior C.J. Conrad. Jones had a message for the tight end.

“I went up to C.J. and said, ‘C.J., get that look off your face. We’re about to go win this. Buckle up and get ready,’” Jones recalled for the media after the game, after Conrad’s game-winning touchdown catch with no time left on the clock.

Jones wasn’t wrong.

That moment stuck out for senior linebacker Josh Allen, too.

“When they threw the pick at two minutes, we knew,” Allen said on Saturday night.

“We knew we (were) going to get the ball right back,” he continued. “Just having that mentality — everybody on the same page — there’s no better feeling than playing for a team like Kentucky right now.”

Something is different this season for UK (7-1, 5-1).

“In previous years we never had a drive like that, we never played defense like that,” Allen said. “We never played a whole fourth quarter like that.”

Even Stoops was a bit taken aback by the defense’s mentality in the game.

“The guys were pissed,” said Stoops, who said he went off on a couple of them about shaking off perceived non-calls and other struggles.

“I don’t care what it’s like,” the coach said he told them. “’Bow up and go make a play. Go find a way.’

“And that’s what we did. I’m really proud of this group and the maturity that they have that you can get in their face, you can challenge them when things look absolutely desperate and they respond.”

The defense did what it promised and put the offense back on the field exactly one minute and 14 seconds later. It was the veteran group’s eighth straight forced three-and-out of the second half.

Then the offense found its magic a bit, too, via an eight-play, 81-yard drive that ended in the Conrad 2-yard touchdown catch from Terry Wilson, who completed every pass on the drive.

“That doesn’t surprise me, the way he responds and the way he bounces back,” Stoops said of Wilson, who bounced back from a struggle-of-a-game the week before versus Vanderbilt. “I expect all of our guys to do that.”

That doesn’t mean that Kentucky doesn’t still have a lot of work to do. It doesn’t guarantee a grown-up Kentucky won’t lose one of these next few games left on the schedule.

But what Stoops saw was growth on a Saturday night in Columbia, Mo., noting that the biggest plays came from UK’s hardest workers and important leaders.

It wasn’t just the defense. It wasn’t just an exceptional play on special teams on a punt return by Lynn Bowden.

It was a group finding a way to win that made it magic, the coach said.

“It’s really gratifying to see all three phases have to step up big late in that game to give us an opportunity to win,” Stoops said on Monday. “Says an awful lot about our team’s character, their heart and just sheer will and determination to find a way to win a football game.

“So very proud of their effort and hopefully that’ll give us some momentum, give us a little boost of energy this week as we prepare for a very big game with Georgia.”

Saturday

No. 6 Georgia at No. 11 Kentucky

3:30 p.m. (SEC Network)