[SLIDESHOW] UK beats Vanderbilt 24-13, becomes bowl eligible

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Derrick Locke finished with a career-high 144 rushing yards and a touchdown on Saturday, but his biggest play didn’t come on the ground. Morgan Newton completed 4-of-7 passes for 40 yards, but none of those numbers encompassed UK’s biggest play through the air in UK’s 24-13 win over Vanderbilt on Saturday in Vanderbilt Stadium.
When the junior tailback swept right on a Wildcat play, the freshman quarterback was wide open. One spiral and 41 yards later, UK (6-4, 2-4 Southeastern Conference) was on its way to becoming bowl eligible for a school-record fourth-consecutive season. The completion from Locke to Newton set up a rushing touchdown from Randall Cobb on the next play.

“I was like, ‘I hope he catches the ball and makes a play,’ ” Locke said. “I kind of saw him bobble it a little, but he caught it and made a play. It helped us out, moved us down the field and got us a score.”

Locke finished the day with 218 all-purpose yards. Sophomore wide receiver Randall Cobb ran for 102 yards and two touchdowns, piling up 170 all-purpose yards of his own. UK head coach Rich Brooks said both players were completely gassed after the game and played through cramps during the second half.

“Randall Cobb was amazing as was Derrick Locke,” Brooks said. “We put ourselves in position now with our second conference win and sixth overall win to be in the postseason for the first time in school history of four-straight years, but our work is not done by a long shot.”

Coaches spent much of the second half imploring Cobb and Locke to go to the sidelines so they could be used later. Locke also suffered a minor head injury, but still returned to score UK’s final touchdown.

“I’m not coming out,” Cobb said. “I don’t want to come out and I’m going to give everything I’ve got. If you’ve got to carry me off the field that’s what I want. That’s how it’s always going to be and I’m going to bleed blue like I always have.”

The Cats finished with 308 yards rushing, almost 200 of which came in the second half after Brooks told his team the offensive line would have to take over the game. With every yard gained by Locke and Cobb, the Cats appeared to grow stronger. The UK defense shut the Commodores out completely in the second half, only giving up 31 yards after the break.

A decidedly pro-UK crowd in Nashville helped out the Cats’ cause. Attendance was announced at 33,675, but plenty of those weren’t there for the Commodores (2-9, 0-7 SEC).

“We had more fans than they had, it seemed,” said senior linebacker Sam Maxwell, who led UK with nine tackles. “That’s good support. We need that kind of motivation when we’re out there.”

For those fans who made the trip, they left with hopes of another December spent bowling.

“It is a huge thing,” Brooks said of becoming bowl eligible again. “You can’t really downplay that in my mind because it’s never happened. But at the same token, we’re not happy with where we are at this stage … We lost two games (South Carolina and Mississippi State) and we’d be looking a lot better right now if we’d have won one of those, let alone two of them. And those were very tough losses but I’m proud of how the team has bounced back.”