LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Good things come to those who work.
That’s the story of Kentucky’s 10-3 win over Auburn on Saturday night. It didn’t need a miracle or magic. (OK, maybe it needed a Magic Eraser after a late interception.) But mainly, Kentucky just needed grass-stained perseverance.
For weeks, Kentucky football had been close. It should have beaten Texas. It could have beaten Ole Miss. None of that kept the Wildcats out of the SEC cellar. But on Saturday night, they didn’t just break through, they wore Auburn down, stuffed its offense, and finally walked off a Southeastern Conference field as winners again.
The win snapped a 10-game SEC losing streak. It quieted 88,043 fans at Jordan-Hare and, for the first time in what felt like forever, gave Mark Stoops a moment of postgame peace.
“Our players never flinch,” Stoops said. “They never submit to any outside noise or pressure. They just stay the course.”
This win wasn’t pretty. It was barely watchable. It sounded like a baseball score, looked like a rugby match and, at times, felt like a funeral. But it was vintage Stoops.
Kentucky leaned on defense. It leaned on field position. Aidan Laros didn’t so much punt the ball as deliver precision-guided gut-punches – six times planting the Tigers inside their own 20, an average starting position somewhere between “hopeless” and “the abyss.”
Kentucky leaned on Cutter Boley, a freshman quarterback who threw two interceptions but still orchestrated the only touchdown drive of the game.
And it leaned on a freshman wideout, Cam Miller, who turned what could’ve been a game-losing interception into a game-saving forced fumble. That play, with three minutes to go in the game, was Kentucky’s drop-your-watermelon moment. A risk taken, a tipped ball, an Auburn interception heading the other way, when Miller pursued the ball from behind and punched it out, allowing Henry Boyer to recover it at midfield.
Kentucky’s defense might’ve stopped Auburn anyway had it taken over there. But that’s not how the Wildcats’ luck has been trending the past two seasons. As it was, Kentucky was able to run a few more plays, force the Tigers to drain their timeouts, and turn it over to the defense for the kill.
This, in all, was the Stoops blueprint before the 10-win seasons and high-expectation headaches. It was a team, not trying to silence the noise, but outwork it.
The breakthrough
On Kentucky’s only TD drive, it was two huge third and 11 connections. Boley hit receiver Fred Farrier for 13 on the first one, then 32 on the second. Two plays later, he swung a screen to Kendrick Law, who weaved 13 yards into the end zone.
It was the only punch the Kentucky offense would need to land.
Brad White’s defense brought pressure all night, finishing with seven sacks, 12 tackles for loss, and one of the program’s stingiest SEC defensive showings in years. Auburn managed just 241 total yards — just one more yard than Kentucky had.
If Stoops’ tenure has taught us anything, it’s that he’s most comfortable in a 10-3 rock fight. And that’s what Saturday was.
A payoff, finally
This season hasn’t been kind to Stoops or his players. The scoreboard hasn’t always told the full story, but the record — now 3-5 overall, 1-5 in the SEC — speaks loudly enough.
Stoops didn’t bring a stat sheet to his postgame news conference. Didn’t even look at one after the game. This game wasn’t about stats. Or about playoff hopes. It was about program pride.
“I acknowledge that it’s been a long season,” Stoops said. “But for us, it’s about one-week missions.”
Asked if he felt any personal vindication, Stoops didn’t flinch.
“No,” he said. “It’s not about me. I’m just happy for the players. They deserve this. You've covered me for a long time. You know what I say I mean, and I'm authentic when I tell you how much I love this team, and I like coaching them, and I love the way they fight. And, you know, I'm very happy for them. They deserve that feeling.”
He’s right. Cam Miller deserved it for a game-saving punchout that belonged on a turnover circuit video. Boley deserved it for coming right back after a costly pick and delivering a touchdown drive. The defense deserved it for holding Auburn to its fewest points in a home game in 13 years.
And Stoops earned it the hard way, by sticking with this team through the low points, when it would’ve been easy to panic, or to press, or to play the blame game.
Something to build on
What does this mean going forward? Hard to say.
Florida comes next. Then Tennessee Tech. Then road games at nationally ranked opponents Vanderbilt and Louisville. Stoops’ future is a topic for another time. Kentucky is still writing the closing chapter of this season, and it proved Saturday that it still has resolve in the tank.
It is still clocking in. That matters.
“Let’s come to work Monday,” Stoops said. “Let’s go 1-0 again. That’s all we can control.”
Good things come to those who work. And on Saturday night in Auburn, Kentucky’s work finally paid off.
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