John Clay's Sidelines

Trevard Lindley

UK football coach Rich Brooks just finished up his press conference, talking about the return of Micah Johnson, Trevard Lindley and Jeremy Jarmon to the defense for next year. All three juniors looked into the NFL draft and decided to return to the Cats for another year.

The striking thing, to me, was that Brooks seemed to be a bit surprised with Lindley’s decision. Not that he was alone. Many, including yours truly, thought the shut-down corner would take the plunge. And Books confirmed that Lindley received a projection that he would be a second-round pick. As the coach said, some players end up slipping down from that, but Brooks said he believed that Lindley would not have fallen beyond the fourth round. And with the workouts, Lindley could have moved up to the first round.

On the other hand, the coach said that all three had received counsel from former UK players in the NFL, back during bye weeks or whatever, saying that yes, it’s nice in pro ball, but there’s nothing like college football. “I think they heard from different guys how much they missed what they were doing here,” said Brooks.

When you look at a Sam Bradford returning to Oklahoma, and a Tim Tebow returning to Florida, you know that has to be a factor. For Kentucky football 2009, that is a very positive factor. Even with six seniors departing, the Kentucky defense looks much better today than it might have looked two weeks ago, when the trio were sifting through the process.

After Kentucky’s miraculous 21-20 win over Arkansas:

• Rich Brooks on the comeback: “Well, I think it’s huge. I told them in the locker room football is a reflection of life in a lot of ways. When it’s the very darkest of the very worst, you have to keep on believing because giving up is not an answer, it’s not an alternative. For them to actually make it happen and make those words real, I am very proud of them.”

• Bobby Petrino: “That’s a hard one for us. We had a lot of chances to win the football game, starting in the first quarter when we had the ball down in there and didn’t get any points, and fumbled on the one and threw an interception on the one. All those things add up and end up hurting you. We had chances in the end to run the clock out and fumbled it back. Obviously, we feel like our defense has to come up with the stop at that time and we couldn’t do it. Give credit to Kentucky, they hung in there and made the plays at the end of the game and we didn’t.”

• Petrino is right. The play of the game may have happened with 1:12 left in the first quarter when, on third-and-goal from the one-yard line, Arkansas running back Michael Smith was hit by UK safety Calvin Harrison, causing a fumble. Kentucky’s Corey Peters recovered. Had Smith scored, the Razorbacks would have led 14-0 at the end of the first quarter.

• Arkansas quarterback Casey Dick, “This one hurts. We thought we had the game in control, and the bottom line is that we have to find a way to play good at the end and make plays. No matter what we are doing, we have to move the ball and play well.”

• Petrino said that Michael Smith, who rushed for 192 yards on 35 carries, may have suffered a concussion right before Arkansas kicked the field goal for a 20-7 lead with 10 minutes remaining. “He probably has a concussion which is scary because we don’t know how long he’ll be out with that,” said Petrino. “It’s a shame because he was playing his heart out, doing a great job running the ball, catching the ball.”

• UK running back Derrick Locke has at least a sprained knee. UK fears that there may be a ligament tear, but won’t know until an MRI is done on Monday.

• Mike Hartline ended up completing 17 of 32 passes for 239 yards and a career-high three touchdowns with two interceptions. His quarterback rating was 134.3, his highest this season.

• Brooks on Hartline: “Mike is a very confident guy and his confidence has been shaken recently. It was probably shaken early in this game. I don’t think there has ever been a young quarterback that has been able to come ack and do this at Kentucky in a long time. In game where the only way we can win is to throw it and he makes the plays necessary to win the game. I hope this does a lot for his confidence and other’s confidence in him.”

• Hartline on Hartline: “It’s really surreal. I don’t know whether to be really excited to just realize what just happened. Everything went so fast. I’m really proud of our offense the way they just didn’t quit. All the coaches believed in us throughout the game. We weren’t going to quit even though we didn’t have much success in the first half. There is no quitting in the offense.”

• Alfonso Smith caught five passes for 108 yards and one touchdown.

• Randall Cobb caught five passes for 73 yards and two touchdowns.

• Casey Dick completed 11 of 29 passes for 94 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. His passing rating was 62.2.

• UK linebacker Micah Johnson: “This game is huge. It would have been a difficult situation to go to Florida 0-3 in the SEC. Getting this win lightens things up and if we can keep this heart and fight, with little mistakes, we can beat anyone.”

• Cobb: “It’s all about heart and seeing how deep you can dig to get the job done.”

• UK is saying this ties UK’s best fourth-quarter comeback. The Cats trailed Vanderbilt 13-0 in the fourth quarter before winning 14-13 in 2004. That was Brooks’ second season.

• This was just Kentucky’s second one-point win in the past 20 years. The Vandy win in ’04 was the other. Before that, you have to go back to 1988 when UK beat Vanderbilt.

• UK forced four turnovers, and leads the SEC with 20 forced turnovers.