‘We proved our identity.’ UK defense thriving with its back against the wall.
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Game day: Kentucky 20, Florida 13
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s Kentucky-Florida football game at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky.
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Florida had nine opportunities to run a game-tying — or, if it scored a touchdown and got a two-point conversion, game-winning — play inside Kentucky’s 20-yard line inside the final minute of play. And nine times, the Gators failed to find pay dirt.
That sequence of plays featured two of Florida’s eight false-start penalties, the product of a sold-out Kroger Field. Kentucky’s crowd was the first group to receive praise from head coach Mark Stoops in his postgame news conference, and was lauded by every staffer and player who spoke with media afterward.
The crowd deserved its credit. But it didn’t take long for UK’s ball-stoppers to get their due.
“Defensively, back-to-back, as good of performances that we’ve had in a long time,” Stoops said.
A seven-play, 75-yard drive on Florida’s second series put the Gators up 7-0 midway through the first quarter, but it proved to be an outlier rather than a tone-setter. They put together two other lengthy scoring drives, but both were capped by field goals after stalling in UK territory. Florida piled up 54 yards on its final series, but its last play that drive was a pass deflected by Jacquez Jones. Kentucky soon after kneeled for a 20-13 victory.
Josh Paschal finished with seven tackles, 2.5 of them for a loss, and blocked the Gators’ second field-goal try of the game, a play that turned more than momentum in Kentucky’s direction. He got both hands on a ball that deflected into the hands of true freshman linebacker Trevin Wallace, who hauled it 76 yards for a touchdown that gave UK a 14-10 lead, to which it clung for the remainder.
Paschal was back in Lexington when UK defeated Florida in Gainesville in 2018, a victory that ended a 31-game losing streak to the Gators. He played a little bit at the end of that season after undergoing offseason surgery to remove a malignant melanoma discovered on his right foot, but he has since blossomed into one of the team’s biggest leaders. Earlier this year he became the first Kentucky football player to be named a captain in three straight seasons.
Saturday’s win was something of a “coming full-circle” moment for the senior.
“You just cherish it,” Paschal said. “I remember, looking back on 2018, and wishing I could be there to make plays. It’s a blessing to be here a couple years later making those plays and being able to help my team out with this win.”
Paschal wasn’t in the game for all of UK’s final defensive series — sophomore Tre’vonn Rybka took over on the majority of snaps — but his influence was felt then and throughout the game. He brought a sense of calm to a defensive line that in the first quarter lost its starting nose guard, senior Marquan McCall, to an ankle injury; he was injured on the only Florida series that ended in a touchdown. Defensive coordinator Brad White said he needs to review the tape, but he didn’t think back-ups Josaih Hayes and Justin Rogers did anything detrimental in relief of McCall.
“When a big player like Marquan goes down, you’re thrown into the fire,” Paschal said. “And that was a big game with a big atmosphere. A lot of pressure that a young guy can feel, and to see those guys step up, and make those plays, and just be able to go in there and not skip a beat? We’re really glad to see that.”
Kentucky’s offense last week at South Carolina put the defense in some dicey situations, and it responded on each occasion. Penalties and turnovers weren’t an issue this week when UK had the ball in its hands, but it had a tough time getting any traction. The Wildcats were 1-for-9 on third down and had the ball for only 23 minutes of game time, so for a second straight week the defense got plenty of what it describes as “opportunities.”
Florida racked up yardage — it wasn’t too far from doubling up Kentucky, 382 to 224 — but the Cats held the Gators to a season-low 171 rushing yards; they were averaging 323 yards per game, No. 3 in the nation, coming in. Quarterback Emory Jones was held in a check most of the night, and lauded backup Anthony Richardson in his few appearances didn’t demonstrate the level of wizardry he did against non-Power Five competition earlier in the season.
With a victory on the line against a top-10 team that’s had its number for the better part of the last 35 years, Kentucky withstood blow after blow in the red zone and walked away with a school-record fourth straight win decided by single digits.
“They have played really well with their backs against the wall,” White said.
Paschal, unknowingly doing an imitation of Stoops from about 30 minutes earlier, said UK would celebrate for a few hours tonight and then move onto LSU. The Wildcats will likely be ranked, in large part thanks due to a historic string of defensive efforts.
They didn’t have anything to prove to themselves, but the nation will be on alert, now.
“We proved that we can play with anybody,” Paschal said. “We already knew that. We proved our identity. We’re a defense that will swarm around the ball and that, no matter what happens, we’re gonna bounce back and respond.
“We’re a true brotherhood here at UK.”
Next game
LSU at No. 16 Kentucky
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Records: LSU 3-2 (1-1 SEC); UK (5-0, 3-0 SEC)
TV: SEC Network
This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 12:37 AM.
