Kentucky-South Alabama Postgame Quotes
KENTUCKY FOOTBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
KENTUCKY VS. SOUTH ALABAMA
KROGER FIELD – LEXINGTON, KY.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2026
UK Student-Athletes
#73 Olaus Alinen, OL
On what was working for the offensive line…
“It’s kudos to those guys (backs). They ran really hard today and they executed and made explosive plays. We got awesome running backs who really did their job well, and I think as long as we do our job well, it’s wide open for those guys, which is awesome, and they’re going to take advantage of it.”
On getting that push…
“I think running the ball-that’s a big thing for our program. We got a great scheme by our coaches, and we got to go out there and do our job. We got to play physical and play to our standard. When that happens, good things happen.”
On Coach Stein’s standard…
“Definitely to be better. We got to start fast, play with one play focus, and got to execute and play clean football. We can’t put ourselves in tough situations.”
#22 Grant Godfrey, LB
On what the focus was…
“It could have been the team we were playing this week. Each week has to be constantly going at each other. I think it was just riding the high and the competition in this game versus South Alabama.”
On Stein as a coach…
“He does yell. He got on to me last game a little bit because we were rotating a lot back when I was in the game, and we messed up the call. He screamed at me to get back on the field. He yelled, but he’s the coolest coach on the sideline.”
On getting his first interception …
“It felt amazing. The ball just floated to my hands. I tried to use my old running back skills and get out of there, but I am just happy I got the interception.”
#2 Jovantae Barnes, RB
On scoring a touchdown …
“Just the offensive line doing a great job of blocking. You know, I made a guy miss and just kept my eyes up. I knew eventually I was going to get in.”
On the running backs room …
“Yeah, we’re all different, but we’re all hungry. So I think just coming to Kentucky, it was different for me because I didn’t really know the culture, but in the portal, I knew Coach Smith. He poured into me, and Coach Stein did a lot, and I just believed in the whole coaching staff. I think we all do the same, just come to work every day and ready to work.”
On picking Kentucky in the portal …
“It was the coaching staff and the players they were getting. It was just a no-brainer. I knew Coach Smith. Me and him had a strong bond right away. As soon as I entered the portal, he hit up my agent, and I liked them a lot. Also, the back he coached last year. I feel like we had pretty similar attributes, and I just watched this film a lot, even when I was at my old school, and got on the phone with him, took the visit, and I fell in love with everything.”
#1 CJ Baxter, RB
On being able to find the gaps…
“The o-line was creating them. I feel like y’all could have ran through them with the gaps that they were creating. But the o-line, they’re amazing, man. The way they work during the week, if you guys could see that, you guys would be like, wow. Coleton, Lance, Tegra, Olaus, Malachi, all those guys. They really bond and connect with one another, and it shows on the field. As well as they block, their brotherhood is even better. I think that’s why they play so well together.”
On how Coach Stein and the team balanced the slow start…
“I just felt like we didn’t play up to our standard. We know our standard. We got to get better. That’s what tomorrow and the rest of the week is for. We got momentum going into halftime. But our big thing around here is one-play focus. Once we got to halftime, we were like the first half is behind us. Let’s put it behind us, but let’s go play to our standard. We know that we didn’t play the first half to our standard, so we just regrouped. We tell everybody one-play focus. Let’s go out there and play to our standard.”
On Javonte’s big day after an emotional week…
“It was super exciting. If you go back and look when he scored, I almost passed out trying to celebrate him. But man, he’s put in the work to get back to being healthy, to playing how he played today. The coaches do a great job of rotating us. Coach Stein and Coach Sloane do a great job of playing to our strengths. It was amazing to see him and JP have the success that they have. I was more happy for them than I was for myself.”
#26 Jason Patterson, RB
On his big run to end the first half…
“You want to give all credits to the o-line. If you go back and look at the run, the hole was so wide open. I didn’t do anything but run, my job as a running back is to run.”
On how versatile the running back room is…
“It’s crazy, I feel like we haven’t reached our full potential. What our guys can do, what I can do. It’s just so much crazy, and I just feel like it’s so much more in store. But we have the rest of the season, with eight more games.”
South Alabama Head Coach Major Applewhite
On reaction to today’s loss…
“I hate to lose. And regardless of who the opponent is and how good they are, I hate to lose. I knew we would have to throw the ball to be competitive in this ball game and go win it and it kind of got away from us there towards the middle and the end of the 3rd quarter, but we didn’t come here to play close or any of that stuff.”
On starting Jared Hollins…
“He played well last week. Bishop was banged up, obviously, coming off the Tulane game.”
On Jared’s Holland’s mistakes…
“There’s always going to be plays when you play over 70 plays in the ballgame as a quarterback that you want back. We’ve got to learn from some of those mistakes, which we will, because he’s humble and he’ll be better.”
On what the team could do better…
“We just have to go look at the film and see the roles. There’s no hierarchy. Coaches need to do better, players need to do better, but more than anything, we need be honest with ourselves and see what we could have done better.”
South Alabama Student-Athletes
#7 Jared Hollins, QB
On the effort in the game …
“Man, first of all, I want to thank God for the opportunity to play this game. Come out here and do this thing with my teammates. We had a good first half. We cannot turn the ball over right before half. That’s one big thing. Give them three points. You know, we had momentum going into halftime, so we came out a little flat, and they took advantage of it. So we got to figure that out, get back to work, and get back next week ready to rock.”
On conference play starting …
“Obviously, conference play is the most important thing we’re going to do, and who we’re going to face. These teams know us the best. So Applewhite always says that these games will come down to one or two plays, and so we know them. They know us. We got to go get back to work this week and get ready to go.”
#1 Anthony Eager, WR
On the touchdown …
“It’s just good to be back. You know, coming off the injury, you know, all spring and everything. This is good to be back. Feeling good to get in the end zone again. You know, gotta keep on stacking days, keep on stacking games, and we’re going to come up top one day. That’s good.”
On how to move forward with the conference approaching …
“Really, nobody can mess with us if we play like that every game. You know, we come out just swinging, come out swinging, and we stay on it. We have a better second half. I think we’re going to win the conference.
On the game slipping away quickly …
“Come out the second half a little bit better because all that stuff happened in the second half. You know, we were stopping them. We held them well in the first half. We just have to keep on coming out, come out again like we did in the first half, and promise you we’ll come out winning on top.”
#14 Cole Blaylock, S
On the effort on the field today …
“I mean, the effort’s always good. We just got to clean up some mistakes we’re making. I mean, we got to tackle better. We got to fit our gaps better and just got to get ready for the conference play coming up.”
On what you take out of today …
“I believe that we can play with anybody when we’re playing well. I mean, we can do it, we can be as good as we want to be. We just can’t beat ourselves.”
On stopping the tide when it’s rolling …
“I mean it’s a hard thing to do. I mean changing momentum in football is a very difficult thing to do, but we also have to do it better. I mean the same thing happened in Ohio. We lost some momentum coming out of the second half, and we came back and found a way to win, and we just didn’t do that today.”
