Q&A with UK graduate assistant Andre Woodson

Kentucky has beaten top-ranked teams three times in its football history, and Andre Woodson was the last UK quarterback to accomplish that feat, leading the Cats to a 43-37 triple-overtime win over visiting LSU in 2007.

Woodson is back as a graduate assistant coach who is helping tutor current quarterback Morgan Newton. With Kentucky heading to Baton Rouge to play LSU, ranked No. 1 yet again, Woodson answered questions about that 2007 win, and the team's 49-0 loss at Tiger Stadium the season before.

Q: What do you remember from the 2007 game?

A: Well, I remember obviously that was a huge game for us. We wanted to make a statement not just for that season, but for the previous season, how bad we got beat. We obviously wanted to come away with the win, but at the same point we wanted to make sure that everyone knew that this wasn't the same team as the previous season and that we definitely wanted to make a name for ourselves in the conference. That was huge that we won that, not just for ourselves but for the city, for the state, I think we really proved a point that we weren't the same doormat conference team that everyone thought we were. Now we're a team that can actually compete in this conference. Coming away with that win, we obviously gained a lot of respect from it.

Q: You guys were down 27-14 in the third quarter, what do you remember from the comeback?

A: You know, it's funny, that whole season I think we were always coming back. We seemed to always come back. We were just one of those teams that just fought through it. We always knew that we had the ability to come back. We relied on each other. We never lost faith. And that's something we're trying to get across to our team right now. No matter what the situation is like, you've just got to stick together and fight through it. Fortunately for us, we did that. We stuck through it and we continued to pound away and take what they gave us. The defense really stuck in there hard, they gave us three-and-outs a couple of times if I'm not mistaken. They did a good job of giving us the ball back and we were eventually able to come back in overtime and win the game.

Q: Going back to the 49-0 loss at LSU in 2006, are there any comparisons to the situation this year heading down to Baton Rouge?

A: Their defense is pretty similar. Obviously this is LSU, they're a very gifted team. They've got 6-foot-2 DB's, and 6-3 safeties. You don't really see stuff like that, even in the SEC you don't see stuff like that. They're a very gifted team so it's going to be a challenge. But that year was a challenge. We were a young team at that point, we're a young team right now, a junior quarterback, junior receivers. I was a junior, Keenan (Burton), (Jacob) Tamme, Stevie (Johnson) were all juniors. All you can really do is learn from the situation, but at the same point you can't really expect to lose. You've got to go in there and want to compete and want to come away with a win. At that point, we did and I feel like our team does. That's very encouraging, and I hope we really build from this. All we can do is battle our butts off and see what happens.

This story was originally published October 1, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Q&A with UK graduate assistant Andre Woodson."