2009 Liberty Bowl
Kentucky 25
... East Carolina 19
GAME RECAP:
UK wins a wild one
-
2009 Liberty Bowl Preview
-
2009 Liberty Bowl
Player Profiles, Histories & More
 |
1. I mocked the
hiring of Rich Brooks by
Kentucky in 2003. Now I feel
like the one who should be
mocked. Brooks has made a lot of
people look foolish lately,
bringing the program back to a
level of respectability with
consecutive bowl wins over
Clemson, Florida State, and East
Carolina. The Wildcats are not
ready to compete for an SEC
title anytime soon, but it’ll be
on solid footing whenever the
reins are handed over to
coach-in-waiting Joker Phillips.
Kentucky was lifeless in the
first half of the Liberty Bowl,
but Brooks and staff pushed the
right buttons and made the right
adjustments to come away with a
25-19 come-from-behind win.
-
Richard Cirminiello
2. Count me in as one of those
people who puts a lot of stock
into the bowl season being used
the great indicator for how to
put the regular season into
perspective. Obviously there has
to be some judgment used here
and there, the Pac 10 didn't
have a great year overall just
because it went 5-0 in the
bowls, but the Liberty Bowl was
important for national
perceptions. This was the
Conference USA champion against
a mediocre SEC team that just
barely earned a bowl spot, and
East Carolina had things in
hand. It was doing a great job
of keeping the punchless
Wildcats in check for a half,
and then came the kick return,
the big defensive plays, and the
Kentucky win, and now Conference
USA has a problem. On a day when
Utah ripped up the SEC West
champion that was a quarter away
from playing for the national
championship, and with the way
the Mountain West played against
the Pac 10 this season, now
Conference USA lumped in with
the WAC and is just ahead of the
MAC and Sun Belt and well behind
the Mountain West. That might be
a bit too much to put on one
game, but that's partly what the
bowls are for, and in the
Liberty Bowl, the Conference USA
champion didn't come through ...
again. -
Pete
Fiutak
3. His knee was clearly down.
The play should have been
whistled dead after the
recovered fumble. Still, the
game-winning touchdown from
Kentucky DT Ventrell Jenkins
will go down for me as one of
the most memorable individual
plays of this bowl season. Few
things are more enjoyable in the
sport than when a beefy
290-pounder gets a head of steam
and realizes he’s got a shot for
six. In case you missed the
highlight, East Carolina was
driving for the go-ahead score
when Jenkins scooped up a fumble
with one hand and chugged 56
yards for the score, delivering
one of the nastiest stiff-arms
you’ll ever see. In an otherwise
tedious game, Jenkins’ effort
really stood out. -
Richard Cirminiello
4.
This game's most obvious turning
point came when Kentucky ran
back the second-half kickoff for
a touchdown to trim a 16-3 lead
to 16-9 without need for
offensive production. With that
having been said, the sequence
that truly allowed the
Wildcats--with an undermanned
offense--to believe they could
win came at the end of the first
half.
East Carolina would have gained
a great deal from a field goal.
Already in front by 13, the
Pirates could have pushed their
lead to 16 and forced the Cats
to score three times in order to
win. But with a fourth-and-10 at
the Kentucky 27, ECU coach Skip
Holtz chose to throw a third
consecutive go route to the end
zone, a simple timing play along
the right sideline. His kicker
was perfectly capable of
drilling a 44-yarder, but for
some mysterious reason, Holtz
eschewed the triple.
The pass attempt failed, keeping
the lead at 13. Just as
importantly, the play sent a
message that ECU didn't respect
Kentucky. After the Wildcats'
defense smothered the Pirates in
the second half--with East
Carolina continuing to use a
vertical passing attack that
does not represent the team's
typical modus operandi--the
Pirates came to regret their
excessive use of long, downfield
throws.
Yes, Kentucky destroyed ECU with
kick returns--the ones the
Wildcats made, and the returns
ECU didn't, thanks to Pirate
returners kneeling when catching
the ball. But before special
teams and a huge fumble return
enabled the Cats to score
touchdowns, an insult late in
the first half planted the seeds
for the UK comeback.
-
Matthew
Zemek
5. This game showed why football
needs replay, and why college
football's replay system is
easily superior to the one used
in the NFL. With all the
bang-bang plays in need of
review in the second half, NFL
coaches might very well have
used up their challenges with a
few minutes left in regulation
time, and someone would have
gotten jobbed. In the college
system, a lot more questionable
calls were reviewed (but not all
of them). There were enough
"knee down or not down" calls to
fill up all of 2009. Thankfully,
college football had a replay
system elastic enough to review
them.
-
Matthew
Zemek
|