The Afterglow: Cats react to upset win

Welcome to winning football, Kentucky fans. Mark Stoops delivered his signature victory (so far) Saturday night when the Cats came back from 14-point deficits twice to upset South Carolina 45-38 in a packed and blacked-out Commonwealth Stadium, where fans rushed the field when it was over.

Jojo Kemp "put the team on his back," as Stoops said, with a surprise 17-carry, 131-yard, three-touchdown performance, most of that coming on direct snaps from the "Wildcat" formation. He almost triggered a trick play that resulted in a touchdown. Fellow running back Braylon Heard had 88 yards on just nine touches, 38 coming on his own TD sprint out of the Wildcat.

The defense got gashed often and gave up 500 yards but also made the critical plays when it counted. Safety A.J. Stamps broke up two passes and picked off another, returning it 50 yards right before halftime to set up a field goal. Then three seniors sealed the win: defensive tackle Mike Douglas tipping a pass to end Bud Dupree for the go-ahead touchdown, then safety Ashely Lowery intercepting the Gamecocks' last gasp.

And with that, Stoops in his second season is off to a 4-1 start, 2-1 in the SEC East, where the Wildcats now believe they are legitimate contenders. "Why Not?" says the slogan. Hear Kemp, Dupree and Douglas as well as QB Patrick Towles and both UK coordinators after the win. SPOILER: Those are some happy dudes.

QB PATRICK TOWLES

On the win: "I feel like a million dollars right now, because I'm as big a Kentucky fan as I am a Kentucky player. This is awesome. This just shows everybody that we're here, and we're here for real. This is just the beginning."

On his wideout spot in the Wildcat: "I don't mind it, especially if Jojo keeps running it like he is. I mean, it was awesome. When we can get in there and really just run at will, it's going to help us beat a lot of people this year."

On seeing wide-open receiver on trick play, thoughts: "Just don't overthrow him or underthrow him, just put it on him. Don't (have to) throw a perfect ball, just let him run under it. We ran that play a bunch in practice and of course he was wide-open every time. I'm thankful it was that wide-open in the game."

On celebrating with fans on the field: "It was awesome. It was awesome. We win for them. They're as much a part of this team as I am. It was great to see my family after the game. So it was awesome."

On putting ego aside to see all the direct snaps to Kemp: "He's a great player. The ball is in good hands when it's in his hands. He made a lot of really great plays and I trust whatever Coach Brown does. And he played awesome, so hopefully we do a lot of that going forward."

On expecting that much Wildcat: "I'll take it. I probably didn't expect to do it that much, but when it's productive, why go away from it?"

On how much this felt like a signature win: "It's huge. It's huge. It's huge. We were extremely close – we're extremely close to being 5-0, which is unbelievable. We're 4-1, which is unbelievable. But we're going to move forward. We're going to win a lot of games, because the tenacity and the passion that we showed tonight is going to win us a lot of football games moving forward."

On saying this week UK was already in the SEC East race: "Well, we're definitely in there now. Definitely, no question. We're there to stay, for sure."

On the trick play: "It was a good play. We had it actually last year against Tennessee. It was kind of a mess-up. But we put it in this week. We'd been doing the Wildcat a bunch and people hadn't really been accounting for me. They'd just been expecting run. So we got a good look, Coach Brown made an awesome call, and we executed it, just because we did it so many times in practice."

DE BUD DUPREE

On if the pick was instinctive or if he had time to think about dropping it: "No, I didn't think about dropping it all. I just thought about getting it and just running, Just running. It's always fun when you get the ball in your hands. I just love it."

On if that's as good a feeling as he's ever had on the field: "Yeah, yeah. That's one of the best feelings I've had since I've been playing football. I hope I can continue to make more plays like that."

On what that ball looks like in the air: "When I see the ball the ball gets big to me. My eyes get real big and the only thing I want to do is catch it, so just had to."

On what he's thinking after scoring: "We just got to go out and make sure the offense executes and make sure when we go back on defense we don't give them another play, how we had been doing the whole game."

On if the thought he'd get another field storm in his career: "Yeah. Once Coach Stoops and them came, I knew it would come soon. Just didn't know when. The way we played in the first half, I'm glad everyone is still together. Most teams would have lost. All my brothers jumped on each other's backs, and Coach Stoops gave us the word."

On what the 'word' was: "Ah, I can't say it. A lot of guys just came in and decided we were going to win the game."

DT MIKE DOUGLAS

On if it seemed like an eternity before Bud caught the tipped ball: "Nah, I was just hoping my hand was in the right place at the right time because I didn't know that the ball was going to go out. I was just hoping that my hand would just hit the ball or something had tipped it. I was just hoping it would go somewhere."

On meaning of this win: "It means a whole lot, just for us. We knew on the sideline -- defense played horrible tonight. We played horrible tonight, and I thank Pat and everybody on offense for keeping us in there. When it came to crush time we had our teammates' back. Because a lot of times we let the offense down, I'm glad they gave us just one more opportunity to go out there. We bowed up when it counted the most."

On the feeling of celebrating with the fans on the field: "I got to experience that in 2011 when we beat Tennessee. It's great to enjoy a great team win with our fans. They're the ones that support us through thick and thin. We've been to the deepest valley and we're still trying to get out that same valley. We're far from – we still haven't played our best ball yet. We still climbing."

On what it says about the defense to come up at the end after struggling so much: "I thank Coach Stoops that we go over situations every week. When situations come, we're able to handle it and stay calm and know what to do in the time when we need it most."

On what Coach Stoops and Eliot said after SC went up 14 in the fourth quarter: "We just got to get a stop. It's no more, 'Let's try.' We have to, because our offense kept us in the game all game. We just had to get a stop. There wasn't ifs, ands or buts. We will get a stop, and we got the stop and we came back with two more stops. I think that just shows how resilient we are as a team and especially as a defense, rebounding after we played horrible for pretty much the whole game."

RB JOJO KEMP

On getting the win: "It means a lot. We just wanted to come out, show the nation, show our fans what UK been working so hard for. Just show that we really changing the game."

On if he expected to be in the Wildcat so much: "Not really, but like I said, whenever my number was called, I had to make the best of my opportunity."

On not playing much last week and starring this week: "It just felt good, but I couldn't do it without my o-line. I just wanted to go out and make the best of my opportunity. Wanted to show what we've been working so hard for."

On if he heard fans chanting his name when he went down: "Not really. I was dead. I was tired."

On if it was just tired, not really hurt: "I cant' tell you that."

On what makes Wildcat so effective: "Like I've said before, it just gives me a chance to just see how the line moves, the backers move in the box and I just react off of them."

On why they can't stop it: "I have no idea, but my o-line they was out there hungry, fighting for every yard I got, so I got to get a present to my o-line."

On corner turning win: "Yes. It was good, felt good to get the victory. Now we've just to come back Monday just work more harder just to continue on the success we have now."

On getting an SEC break: "I don't even care who's next. We out here trying to fight and we're gonna show the world what UK football is made of."

On celebrating: "It felt good. I'd never been a part of that. That's what I came here for. It felt special. I know I came here for a reason, to be something special, I came here to change the program around. Why not us?"

OC NEAL BROWN

On coming back from rocky start: "For us to fight back in the second quarter – I thought the field goal was huge going into half. I thought that was a really big play. And then to come out, I thought the third quarter, scoring right there really made a point that we were in this thing to win it. And then you're talking about nine minutes to go and we score 21 points at the last minute to win it. And great atmosphere there at the end."

On when he knew they'd go that heavy Wildcat: "We carry all that stuff, but you get in the game and you don't know how the ebb and flow is going to go. We had success – we were running the ball; I think they were playing us to pass. We've been about 50/50 all year, but I think they were saying, 'Hey, let's take away the big plays.' And a lot of that Wildcat was there. We had success with it and felt like at the end of the game, if we could get in it, and we got rolling … I thought in the fourth quarter, having success on first down was huge for us.

"And I really felt like we had enough time to stay in it, and we did. Jojo did a great job. He's going to get a lot of the credit, but we blocked really well up front. We blocked real well. We mixed it up how exactly we were doing it, as far as who was motioning, and we were mixing it up between zone schemes and gap schemes. He did a great job. He got winded, as you could see. He got winded, but really a lot of credit to our offensive line also."

On why the Wildcat is so tough to stop: "It's a tough fit. Yeah, it's really a tough fit, and when you can mix in some passes out of it, it really makes it hard to defend. What happens is, you bring the motion so you have to defend the motion, because that's two of our better players, whether it's Javess or Timmons coming in motion; you've gotta defend the sweep. And then all the motion defenders gotta move, can't play downhill as much. And Jojo's got a really good feel for it. You have to be patient."

On hitting a trick play on Spurrier, the king of tricks: "The trick play? Oh, I don't know man. That was fun. It was the same play we had against Tennessee (last year) and we didn't execute it. That was the first trick play I think we've had where hit it right since I've been here. We used to hit those all the time at Tech and Troy. So that was fun. It was a big play in the game. You talk about, that place was loud when we hit that and Timmons scored. This place was electric."

DC D.J. ELIOT

On fourth quarter: "They never fretted. We had obviously had our struggles. We tried to fix the problems and move onto the next series and at the end of the game, the guys still had the mentality that we could win this thing."

On Bud getting pick-six: "I know. He's done so much for this program and the fact that he was the one that made the play it just, it's a great feeling for him and the team."

And Mike Douglas: "Two guys that have been here the whole time and were able to do their part to help win the game. It was awesome."

On giving up 500 yards and still winning: "You would think that you wouldn't win in that situation. The offense played great; the special teams played great and we had our struggles on defense, but in the end, we had to make plays to win the game and the players did it and I'm proud of them."

On what he said to them in fourth quarter: "One, I told them it was still a long game, so it was a great job but we'd better be ready to play because this game isn't over yet. And then, two, this is the situation, we practice it, let's go out there and let's execute it."

On what he's thinking when Douglas tips ball in air: "I'm thinking 'Catch it, Bud.' I'm thinking, 'Catch that, Bud, and score, please.' And he did. Very proud of him."

On crowd: "It was really a great energy tonight and it makes a big difference and I think it made a big difference in our players' play because they stayed enthusiastic and they stayed energetic throughout the game regardless of what they went through and I think the crowd was a big part of that."

On coming back: "Ultimately, the goal in every game is to win, regardless of how you win, regardless of what's happened early in the game, there comes a time when somebody has to make a play to win – to win the game. And we had our struggles early on defense, but in the end, we had some guys make plays that won the game, and that's a lot that you can build off."

On three seniors (Lowery, Douglas, Dupree) sealing it: "I know. Guys that have kind of bought into what we're doing here, and it was something that was very rewarding. Very rewarding."

On such a dramatic turnaround, finish: "It's one of those, 'I can't believe that just happened.' "

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