Kentucky time machine: Bowden audibled Cats to a comeback in Belk Bowl
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Kentucky football time machine
In a spring missing most sports because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are re-publishing the game stories from the University of Kentucky’s 10 bowl victories in chronological order. These stories appear, with some light editing, as they were written at the time in the Herald, the Leader or the Herald-Leader. Click below to read all of the previously published stories in the series.
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Editor’s Note: The Herald-Leader concludes its series re-publishing the game stories from Kentucky’s 10 football bowl victories in chronological order. These stories have appeared, with some light editing, as they were written at the time in the Herald, the Leader or the Herald-Leader. We hope you have enjoyed them.
Dec. 31, 2019
KENTUCKY 37, VIRGINIA TECH 30
Belk Bowl at Bank of America Stadium
Lexington Herald-Leader headline:
Wildcats strike back!; Bowden audibled on UK’s game-winning touchdown
The difference between Kentucky’s football season ending in victory and defeat was a 13-yard touchdown reception that no one at Bank of America Stadium saw coming.
Well, except Lynn Bowden.
”I checked Josh to a post because he’s the best route runner on our team,” Bowden said of his game-winning toss to Josh Ali that helped put UK in front, 31-30, with 15 seconds left against Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl on Tuesday. “He played in the SEC every week against the best corners there are in America, and I seen him break in and I just threw the ball up.
“That’s my guy, so he went and made a play for me.”
Kentucky would go on to win 37-30 after Jordan Wright scooped up a fumble and scored with no time left on the clock, but it was an 18-play drive encompassing 8 minutes and 10 seconds that decided the Hokies’ fate.
Bowden rushed 12 times for 53 yards on that series while getting assists from Kavosiey Smoke (two carries, 6 yards) and Chris Rodriguez (one carry for 4 yards) as UK marched down the field for its definitive score.
The only other reception of the drive might be lost to history but was as crucial as the game-tying TD — Ali made a diving 9-yard catch on fourth-and-7 from the Cats’ own 43 to get them past midfield for the first time since the third quarter.”
Lynn rolled out and I knew I was the only guy over there to get the first down,” Ali said. “So he threw it and I made the catch.”
Virginia Tech called timeout with 19 seconds left and UK facing first-and-10 at the Hokies’ 13-yard line. Bowden ran over to the sideline lobbying for a jump-ball play to Ahmad Wagner.
”Every time I look at him, they go 15 yards off of him,” Bowden said of the Wildcats’ 6-foot-5 wide receiver. “(They) don’t want to get dunked on.”
Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops initially wanted to run for the 16th time on the drive — UK had one timeout left in its pocket in the event it went awry — but the Hokies’ need for a breather allowed him to reconsider.
Letting Bowden pass — as long as it didn’t end in a turnover — gave the Cats more options in case the play didn’t end in the end zone.
”If we would have run it there and not gotten in and taken the last timeout, that kind of takes some of that out of his hands for the next couple plays,” Stoops said. “… I had all the faith in the world he was going to complete a touchdown pass.”
The play was designed for Wagner, but Bowden changed course in the huddle.
”He came over to me before the play and said, ‘Run the post, get open,’ and that’s what I did,” Ali said. “He trusted me.”
Kentucky added 331 rushing yards to what was already its best single-season effort on the ground in program history. The Wildcats this season ended with 3,624 yards, exactly 500 more than the previous record set by the 1974 team.
Landon Young, a junior offensive tackle, said he was “really tired” by the time UK got into Virginia Tech territory on the final series.
”We were pounding it down their throat,” Young said. “We knew we could do it, it was just a matter of what plays would work out. We got down there at the end and called another run play and Lynn said, ‘No, I want a jump ball.’”
All the linemen at that point gave a side eye and said, ‘Huh?’ at that point, Young said with a laugh.
”But we did it,” Young said. “We … had a good pocket for him and let him lay it right in his hands. And that’s the end of the story.”
The goal is to be efficient in the run game, center Drake Jackson said, and Kentucky achieved that: it averaged 4.2 yards per rush during its go-ahead series and 6 yards per carry for the entire game.
Stoops said he thought there was 8:30 left when it secured Virginia Tech’s final punt and he wanted to finish with an 8-minute drive. He was five seconds off his estimate, but the Hokies ended up having less time left than he originally envisioned to complete their futile rally.
”When you have the quarterback run game, if you have four downs and stay ahead of the chains, then we’re hard to stop,” Stoops said.
Like so many times in the second half of the season, the Wildcats were.
This story was originally published July 26, 2020 at 8:36 AM.
