I hate to admit it, but I fully expected Kentucky to lose last night. And, even when they were up 22-7 in the second half, I was still predicting a loss. But, Can you blame me?
In a must-win game, Lynn Bowden led the Cats to a massive victory to keep their bowl hopes alive, and Bowden had quite a game himself.
Lynn Bowden
I’m starting run out of things to say about this guy. He’s simply incredible. Last night, Bowden was 3/7 passing for 54 yards. Most importantly, he had 21 carries for 204 yards and two touchdowns.
In the past three games, Bowden has carried the ball 62 times for 381 yards and three touchdowns.
Max Duffy
The Aussie punter was at it again last night, and he pulled some magic out of his hat that I don’t think was planned. Take a look for yourself:
Safe to say this is a good make-up for his shank against Georgia last week.
Day Day Hawkins
Hawkins got a huge strip-sack in the second half. His moves are something else though.
So, after all of this, will they keep Bowden out there?
“We’ll see. Sawyer is getting better and it’s nice to be able to have the option to go to both guys. Once again, tonight, the conditions made it extremely tough to get him out there. As you can tell, that’s playing with 12 [players] at times. Even though they were loading up, we were playing zero, he still was able to hit some big runs, and again, our coaches really did a good job. They’ve had a lot of stress on them and they’ve worked exceptionally hard. I’m proud of them.” Stoops said.(Quote via Kentucky Sports Radio)
It sounds like Stoops isn’t quite ready to say he is going to pull Bowden, especially after a game like that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lynn Bowden’s reign at QB has come to an end. We will know more later this week.
Where do we go from here?
After last nights big win, Kentucky is now 4-4 (2-4). Their bowl hopes are still alive going into this bye-week.
Next game up is against Tennessee on Nov. 9 at Kroger Field. They have Vanderbilt, UT Martin, and Louisville left on the schedule after the Vols. You need two wins to get bowl eligible and anything more is gravy.
Assuming UT Martin is an automatic win (it is), Kentucky needs one of Louisville, Vandy, and Tennessee, and I believe they will win at least one of those games.
If Mark Stoops and Kentucky can get to a bowl game after all of the injuries they’ve been faced with, it will be a very special accomplishment.
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