He caught the bowl-winning pass for Kentucky. Here’s what he thinks could happen next.
The waves of noise washed over Josh Ali.
If you’ve ever wondered what it is like to score the winning touchdown in the final seconds of a fiercely contested college football bowl game, Ali says it is the sound that sticks with you.
When Kentucky’s wide receiver ran underneath Lynn Bowden’s pass for the game-winning TD in UK’s 37-30, come-from-behind win over Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl last New Year’s Eve, Ali had the good fortune of scoring on the end of Bank of America Stadium dominated by Wildcats fans.
“That side (where) we scored was all UK fans, and it was very loud,” Ali said Monday via the phone. “I can’t even explain the feeling of that.”
After rushing for 233 yards and two touchdowns and throwing the game-winning TD, Bowden was, obviously, the star of Kentucky’s Belk Bowl thriller in Charlotte, N.C.
There would have been no Wildcats victory, however, without Ali, the 6-foot, 190-pound UK senior-to-be from Hollywood, Fla.
In Kentucky’s 18-play, 85-yard game-winning drive, Ali and Bowden combined on the two most crucial plays.
That epic Cats drive was in danger of stalling after nine plays.
The Wildcats were facing fourth-and-7 at their own 43-yard line. Fourth-and-long was the worst scenario for a ground-hugging UK offense using a wide receiver, Bowden, as its quarterback.
Bowden took the snap and rolled right. Not only was Ali the only Kentucky receiver on that side of the field, he was blanketed by the Virginia Tech defense.
While moving, Bowden threw the ball low and into a narrow window.
Diving, Ali somehow caught the pass.
“From the replay when I watched it, it was a really tight hole,” Ali says. “But I just knew I had to catch it. It was a must.”
On the UK radio broadcast, play-by-play announcer Tom Leach implored Kentucky to snap the ball promptly after Ali’s catch lest replay possibly overturn the reception.
Ali says Leach need not have worried.
“I got my hands up under the ball,” Ali says. “I rolled over just to show the ref I had the ball on my chest, just for clarification. But, yeah, I caught that ball. One-hundred percent.”
As will be retold forever in Kentucky football lore, the game-winning TD came on a post pattern that Bowden and Ali improvised on the field.
“We actually have a similar play (in the playbook), but that wasn’t the exact play,” Ali says.
At the line of scrimmage, Virginia Tech defensive back Armani Chatman was pressing Ali.
The UK receiver says “I had a move in my head. I ‘outside-extended’ a little to get more space for my post route. Once I got close to (Chatman), I could see he wasn’t moving anywhere. So I made my move and got inside (of him) and it was a great throw.”
In Kentucky, Ali’s 13-yard TD catch that allowed UK to take the lead with 15 seconds left will be replayed eternally.
“I see it all the time on Twitter,” Ali says. “I watched it, like, a thousand times right after the game. I still watch it, here and there, just to remind myself of where I left off.”
Because football players play in helmets, Ali says he was not always recognized more on the UK campus after his Belk Bowl star turn than before.
“But, if I walk around with my book bag with my name or my number (No. 6) on it, I’ll hear people (say), ‘Oh, that’s the guy who caught the touchdown,’” Ali says.
Like the rest of us, Ali’s life has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and the efforts to contain it. With the UK campus shut down, Ali is back in his native Florida and making the best of things.
“I’ve got a lot of time to get my studies done,” he says. “(I’ve got) a lot of personal time.”
Each week, Ali says Kentucky football’s strength and conditioning coaches send out a workout schedule.
“I get that in every day,” he says. “I take off on Wednesdays.”
When we spoke on Monday, Ali said there was still a gym open in Florida where he could work out. He also said he has some weights set up in his garage. “And sometimes, I just go downstairs and do the workout that I was given by the strength and conditioning coaches,” he said.
With Bowden entered in the 2020 NFL Draft, Kentucky will presumably return to a more conventional offense — with normal amounts of passing — when and if the next college football season kicks off.
It will be fascinating to see if Ali, who caught 23 passes for 233 yards and three touchdowns in 2019, can use his bowl-game heroics to propel his career to the next level.
“I hope from that last drive (in the Belk Bowl), the coaches understand that I am a big-play maker on the team, that I can be trusted (to play that role),” Ali says. “So, yes, (the bowl performance) gives me a lot of confidence.”
