On paper, Kentucky football’s opening weekend matchup against Southern Mississippi was a clean win. A 31-0 shutout in front of a full house of Wildcat fans and one inevitable, awkward corner of visiting supporters whose disappointment is almost as satisfying as the win itself.
What isn’t reflected in the box score is the three hours that 50,000-plus people in attendance waited for the game to start. By 7:45 p.m. (the scheduled kickoff time) on Saturday night, Aug. 31, Kroger Field was at maximum capacity–then came the lightning.
In sporadic increments throughout the rest of the night, visible bolts in the area delayed the kickoff over and over again. Despite the lack of any serious inclement weather, save for some scattered bouts of rain, unflinching rules enforced by the NCAA meant players, coaches and personnel stood on the sidelines as helpless as the onlooking crowd.
Both teams eventually got the greenlight to start the game around 10:15 p.m. Ironically, that’s likely about the time it would’ve ended had things begun on time.
As far as the game itself goes, the Cats wasted no time out of the gate–they jumped out to a 7-0 lead on their second drive, when transfer quarterback Brock Vandagriff threw his first touchdown to star wideout Barion Brown. The visiting Golden Eagles had no answer from there on out, failing to both stop the Wildcats’ offensive barrage and form one of their own.
By halftime, Kentucky had mounted a 31-0 lead. It was almost midnight in Lexington. Then, another lightning strike happened, turning a planned 10-minute halftime into another indefinite setback.
With a new day dawning in the dead of night, Southern Miss. sacrificed any chance of a second-half comeback for the sake of all involved, agreeing to forfeit the remaining time and chalk the game up as an official loss. Of course, this also meant a Wildcats win and a 1-0 start to the new season.
What was supposed to be a sunset showdown between Kentucky and an expectedly weak non-conference opponent turned into one of the weirdest, most ill-fitting season openers in the history of the team.
But what may be just as important as the eventual notch in the winning column for the Cats is the resiliency of the fans who stuck around to see them through it. These are the same fans who watched for years as coach after coach blew through the program like a tumbleweed in the middle of Lexington; out of place and out of tradition.
That was back when the win/loss records looked like simplified fractions:6-7, 5-7, 4-8, 2-10. This was when football meant virtually nothing in the Bluegrass. Even considering the relatively recent success that the program has enjoyed, they finished last year at an underwhelming 7-6 mark, narrowly losing their final game in the Gator Bowl to drill in the disappointment. But it’s in the nature of Kentucky Football to be up and down.
Yet people still packed the place out last week, even in the face of all the uncertainty. An array of new coaches, a transfer quarterback and the bitter end to last season–none of it mattered.
In his postgame press conference, Head Coach Mark Stoops gave the fans their flowers.
“I sincerely can’t even begin to thank the fans for what they were like… That was truly amazing,” Stoops said. “I know our guys played hard. I know they were excited to play for them. And I feel like our team really, really did that.”
The reputed “Big Blue Nation” knows no bounds, and their love for the team goes well beyond the sport itself. If you take anything away from Kentucky’s chaotic opener, make it that. No matter the circumstances, players or place, blue always gets in.
Photo courtesy of Lexington Herald.
