Bowl Win Would Be ‘Icing on the Cake’ for Rewarding Season
Over the last month, nearly every moment has made Kash Daniel think about the end of his journey as a Kentucky football player.
Having gone from a Senior Day win over Louisville to graduation 10 days ago to his final practices as a Wildcat, Daniel doesn’t need to think hard about what he wants the conclusion of his career to look like.
Sitting at media day on Monday with the Belk Bowl trophy just a few feet behind him, Daniel can picture it clearly.
“If we get this win,” Daniel said. “A win and hugging Coach (Mark) Stoops and embracing it with my teammates and seeing that confetti fall and just holding that trophy up. That would be the moment.”
For his four years in Lexington, Daniel hasn’t known anything but bowl games. The last of the four will kick off for Kentucky (7-5) at noon on New Year’s Eve against Virginia Tech (8-4) at Bank of America Stadium.
“We’re going to play our game,” Lynn Bowden Jr. said. “That’s it. Play our game. Let the game be the game.”
This year’s bowl trip has brought UK to Charlotte, where the Cats have enjoyed themselves with visits to Charlotte Motor Speedway and the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Stoops wants it that way.
“We talked about it throughout the week and I talk about it with the players all the time, that I want them to enjoy this experience and have a great week and take memories from here,” Stoops said. “And we’re going to work hard in practice, we’re locked in during meetings, but outside of that I want them to enjoy themselves.”
Though the time for non-football diversions is now over, the fun is not. After final preparations on Monday at the team hotel and a night of rest, it will be time to play.
“The most memorable experience will be at the end of the game,” Stoops said. “You either win or you lose. I know it’s a lot more fun. You’re going to look back on this bowl experience and have a lot better feelings about it if you win the game.”
That’s spoken from first-hand knowledge, as UK lost its first two bowl games under Stoops before winning last year’s Vrbo Citrus Bowl. Now, the Cats have a chance to make Stoops just the third coach in school history to win back-to-back bowls. He would join Rich Brooks and Paul “Bear” Bryant if he does so.
“I didn’t even know that, but that’s huge, honestly,” Logan Stenberg said. “That would be great for the program. I think we’ve broken some school records this year already and just adding that on to the list would be incredible.”
This season has brought an end to a streak of improving on or tying the previous year’s win total in every season of the Stoops era, reaching bowl eligibility once again should not be overlooked as an achievement. Not when you consider the fact that UK lost the national defensive player of the year in Josh Allen, the school’s all-time leading rusher in Benny Snell Jr. and its entire starting secondary. And oh yeah, the Cats had to reinvent themselves on the fly after injuries to quarterbacks Terry Wilson and Sawyer Smith.
“Before Coach Stoops got here or maybe his first couple years here, if you put those teams in the same adversity that we’re in right now, those teams I don’t think would be here because of the culture change and the mindset change,” Daniel said. “Just because one or two bad things happen, we’re not going to let this whole thing derail the season.”
Far from being derailed, UK rallied around Bowden to establish a new offensive identity and a young defense grew one into the nation’s best. That all added up to five wins in seven games to close the regular season. Now, the Cats have a chance to score a big win over a quality Virginia Tech squad that was in contention for the ACC title until the final week of the regular season.
“It’s another step,” Stoops said. “It’s constantly another step. You know, with us, the amount of work that goes in for 12 guaranteed regular-season games and then one here in the bowl game, so every opportunity means a great deal to us. We’re trying to keep that positive momentum going with our program and we got a lot of good things in place and a young football team, so this’ll help with that team and their mindset in the offseason.”
Daniel, of course, won’t be there for that offseason. He’ll be off to the next phase of life with his fellow seniors and Bowden, but will carry plenty of memories from the last month and the last four years with him. Those memories will be overwhelmingly positive regardless, but he wants to add one more with that Belk Bowl trophy.
“It would be the icing on the cake, I believe,” Daniel said.
