LEXINGTON, Ky. | After its first two drives, Kentucky was controlling the ball, putting up 100 yards of total offense against an Auburn defense that looked slow. A two-yard touchdown run by Jamarion Wilcox put the Wildcats up 10-0 less than seven minutes into the game. It looked like it would be a long night for the Tigers.
That's when DJ Durkin's crew went to work.
For the final 53-plus minutes, Auburn allowed Kentucky just 124 yards, forced two turnovers and, most importantly, held the Wildcats to zero points.
So, what happened between those first two drives and the rest of the game? It starts with what's going on between the two ears.
"There were a couple of mental mistakes and a couple of things where we really needed to lock in on our jobs," Keldric Faulk said. "We looked really good. I feel like we figured it out. We're really good once we hone in on what we're supposed to do. Nobody lost sight of that."
Dorian Mausi agreed with his teammate.
"I mean, the slow start was just mental errors," the linebacker said. "That's all it was: Mental errors. I know, on my part, it was also tackling. I missed a tackle on the first play of the game and also on the goal line."
After a Payton Thorne interception put the Tigers in a bad spot, the defense started rising, keeping Kentucky to a 3-and-out with Faulk's first sack of the game coming on 3rd down. It was part of his two-sack, two-tackles-for-a-loss performance.
"Just playing relentless on defense," Faulk said. "Whether we had the wrong call or the wrong check, we just played relentless on defense. Our effort, whether we made mistakes or not, it covered everything. Every mistake, every blown check, our effort covered everything."
Counting that drive, Kentucky put up a mere 66 yards of total offense on its next six drives. Finally, with some momentum and trailing 24-10 late in the fourth quarter, the Wildcats had 1st and goal at the 3-yard line. The defense wasn't going to let up anymore.
Eugene Asante smacked Jason Patterson to keep him to a short gain on first down. A quarterback keeper by Gavin Wimsatt was sniffed out on second, and then a complete pass to Khamari Anderson went for no gain. Still, the Wildcats had a shot on fourth down to punch it in.
Kayin Lee had other ideas. The cornerback read the play and stepped in front of the Kentucky receiver for the interception, practically sealing the game for the Tigers.
"I saw 6 go in motion; I knew they wanted to get him the ball," Lee said. "I knew they were going to throw it to him. I just wanted to go make a play. That's what I did."
His head coach was awed by the play.
"That play by Kayin Lee was -- we were in man coverage, and they motion all the way over and all the way back," Hugh Freeze said. "You see it stopped some, but to get there and pick it? It was a pretty phenomenal effort."
Overall, the Tigers kept Kentucky to 224 total yards, way below its average of 307.9 per game. And Auburn stepped up when needed after a slow start, much needed to help break a four-game losing streak. It was exactly what the Tigers were looking for.
"We just knew it was going to be a dogfight," Lee said. "We knew the whole week we wanted to fight and finish -- especially when we got up in the game; I was just telling everybody, let's just finish. That's our biggest thing: We've got to finish. You know how many of those other games we could have had, but we didn't finish. That was our biggest thing."
