Five things you need to know from UK football’s 45-10 win over Louisiana Monroe
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Game day: Kentucky 45, Louisiana Monroe 10
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-ULM football game at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 45-10 win over Louisiana Monroe in the 2021 season opener at Kroger Field:
1. Levis shines in first UK start. In his Kroger Field debut, Penn State transfer Will Levis played as well as anyone could have reasonably hoped.
Showing off his howitzer of a right arm, Levis completed 18 of 26 passes for 367 yards and four touchdowns with one interception (off a deflection).
The 6-foot-2, 232-pound product of Madison, Conn., put the deep ball back in the Kentucky offense, throwing touchdown passes of 58 yards (Josh Ali) and 33 yards (Wan’Dale Robinson) and setting up a field goal with a 57-yard completion (Isaiah Epps).
Starting with Tim Couch in 1996, Kentucky is now 13-7 in games in which a quarterback makes their first UK start.
However, UK QBs making their first starts had lost two of the past three with Sawyer Smith (Florida, 2019) and Joey Gatewood (Georgia, 2020) on the negative side of the ledger while Lynn Bowden (Arkansas, 2019) was a first-start winner.
2. Wan’Dale worth the wait. In his own Kentucky premiere, ex-Western Hills star Wan’Dale Robinson reminded his native state how electric he can be with a football in his hands.
The former Nebraska Cornhusker caught five passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns.
Robinson’s first catch as a Wildcat went for a 33-yard TD on a deep crossing route. His second TD came on a 15-yard slant in which Robinson barreled through two defenders at the goal line.
Kentucky’s 2018 Mr. Football even made good on his most conspicuous bad play. After fumbling a punt while trying to complete a fair catch, Robinson waded into a pile of ULM players and dug the football out.
3. An amazing comeback. In the next-to-last game of the 2020 regular season, JJ Weaver suffered a torn ACL in Kentucky’s loss to Florida in The Swamp.
Not only did Weaver defy the odds by making it back to play in the 2021 season opener, the 6-5, 231-pound outside linebacker twice recorded sacks of ULM starting quarterback Rhett Rodriguez.
Simply put, Kentucky doesn’t have anyone else with the talent of Weaver rushing quarterbacks off the edge.
So if the 6-5, 232-pound redshirt sophomore from Moore High School in Louisville, makes it back to full capacity, the impact on what is possible for UK this season will be immense.
4. Battle of coaching ‘royal families.’ The coaching matchup Saturday pitted representatives of two of the great college football coaching families against each other — Kentucky’s Mark Stoops vs. ULM’s Terry Bowden.
Bowden is the son of legendary Florida State coach Bobby Bowden and brother of ex-Tulane and Clemson head man Tommy Bowden.
Stoops is the younger brother of ultra-successful, former Oklahoma head man Bob Stoops and ex-Arizona head man Mike Stoops.
Head-to-head, the Stoops coaching dynasty has had the upper hand on the Bowden coaching tree.
With UK’s victory, the Stoops family is now 3-0 in head coaching contests vs. the Bowden family.
On Jan. 1, 2001, Bob Stoops and Oklahoma beat Bobby Bowden and Florida State 13-2 in the Orange Bowl.
In the 2015 season opener, Bob Stoops and the Sooners rocked Terry Bowden and Akron 41-3.
5. Stoops back to even. With the Wildcats win in Mark Stoops’ 100th game as Kentucky head coach, the UK head man now stands 50-50 overall.
The ninth-year Kentucky coach has gone 38-24 since beginning his UK career 12-26.
Blanton Collier — 41-36-3 from 1954-61 — is the last Wildcats head football coach to produce a winning overall record at Kentucky.
Stoops joined Fran Curci (47-51-3 from 1973-81) as the only UK football coaches to make the 100-game threshold on the Wildcats sideline.
Fashion police
In Kentucky’s 2021 season opener, the Wildcats wore blue helmets, blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and blue pants.
UK has now worn that combination in its past five home, season openers (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021). UK is 4-1 in those games.
This story was originally published September 4, 2021 at 3:15 PM.
