UK's kickoff team savors its last dance

LEXINGTON, Ky. — If the energy and excitement Mark Stoops has breathed back into the University of Kentucky football program and its fan base could be illustrated in a single moment, just one simple scene, it happened with 11:45 to go in the third quarter of Saturday night's win over South Carolina.

The Wildcats had surged back from a two-touchdown deficit to take their first lead on a trick play that resulted in a 48-yard touchdown pass. A near-capacity Commonwealth Stadium crowd was already about to boil over when the kickoff team ran onto the field and gathered in a cluster on the 30-yard line.

While kicker Austin MacGinnis teed up the ball in front of them, the other 10 players started bouncing to the beat of a hip-hop song. Suddenly a synchronized dance — although they swear it was not choreographed — broke out. As the crowd and UK's sideline caught on to what was happening, both erupted.

Teammates celebrated wildly. Fans cheered, then rumbled, then roared.

"That was the loudest I've ever heard that stadium. It felt literally like the whole stadium was rocking," said junior cornerback J.D. Harmon, one of the special-teams dancers. "We didn't plan it. It was just kind of heat-of-the-moment. The atmosphere was right, the crowd was feeling it, the music was playing and we just made a big play to get us back in the game.

"All the emotion was pouring out and you could tell the crowd was in tune with our players at that moment."

Kendall Randolph, a freshman defensive back on the kickoff team, said players dance "all the time" in practice, usually without any music at all, just as a way to psyche themselves up for the job at hand. He still isn't sure how exactly they all came to be moving in unison during the game.

"We were really hyped and we didn't even notice," Randolph said. "Everybody just kind of went at the same time. We got a little rock going and I guess it just (took off)."

Linebacker Ryan Flannigan, another dancer, said the players on the field could feel the buzz building around them about halfway through their impromptu routine.

"When I looked to the sideline as we were bobbing," he said, "I knew it was getting crazy."

Now for the wet blanket: That's never happening again. At least not the way it did against the Gamecocks. In fact, the Cats are apparently lucky they weren't penalized for their outburst.

"I'm thinking we're about to get 15 yards and kick off from the 20, and that's not real fun," special teams coach Craig Naivar said. "The excitement is great, and that's awesome (but) we've got to respect the game, respect our opponents and do things the right way. That was great enthusiasm, but we were fringing on getting a penalty and we're going to make sure we're smart about that."

Harmon said the officials warned UK that another on-field dance would result in an unsportsmanlike-conduct flag. So the Wildcats will need to get creative for future spontaneous combustions. And they promise there will be more of those.

"We can't do as much as we did," Harmon said, "but you're going to be able to tell that we're really jacked up."

The irony in Naivar's disdain for the dance is it's his passion that permeates Kentucky's special teams. He's a high-energy coach who loves hair bands from the 1980s and blasts their tunes at the beginning of every meeting with the players.

When it comes to motivating the kickoff-coverage team — running the length of a football field at full speed and colliding with other powerful human beings who wish to flatten you requires a certain kind of person, after all — Naivar has some interesting advice.

"He told us to find a deep, dark place and every time we get on special teams … just try to find it and get it going. He says, 'Light your hair on fire,' " Flannigan said. "He's a crazy dude. He loves to coach and he just gets everybody pumped up."

Sometimes that even produces humorous moments. When Naivar is especially worked up, he tends to spit when he talks. Saturday night against South Carolina was a big saliva game.

"He had like a glob of spit like right here," Flannigan said, drawing a long, imaginary line from the corner of his mouth to the bottom of his chin, "and we were just looking at him like, 'Coach …' And he was just yelling. One of the players grabbed his shirt and wiped it off. I think that was funny."

Naivar won't be laughing, though, if his guys bust another move in Saturday's game against Louisiana-Monroe. He encourages teammates on the sideline to go wild, and especially fans in the stands to fuel that energy.

"They cannot throw a flag on our fans, so hopefully in kickoffs those guys feed off what the crowd is. The crowd got going when they got going. That was awesome," Naivar said. But as for his players: "We would prefer to have good things happen after the kick — be talking about what happens after the kick rather than before the kick."

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Follow him on Twitter @KyleTucker_CJ.