Kentucky football went on the road and defeated the Vanderbilt Commodores 45-28 to move to 4-0 on the season on Saturday.
The game was also the Wildcats’ first test in the SEC and they were able to take care of business to move to 1-0 in conference play.
While the win was meaningful on its own, it also saw history be made for the Kentucky football program when cornerback and redshirt sophomore Maxwell Hairston became the first player in Kentucky football history to have two interception touchdowns in one game.
Hairston’s week four performance earned him a series of awards that includes SEC Defensive Player of the Week, Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week and the Jim Thorpe National Defensive Back of the Week.
The first interception came early in the game after the Wildcats’ offense had just found the end zone and the Commodores were looking to respond.
On a second-and-20 from the Vanderbilt 29-yard line, the Wildcats were able to force pressure on the quarterback, causing him to throw the ball towards his receiver weakly, which allowed Hairston to come flying in and catch the ball in stride before taking it straight into the end zone for a touchdown to extend the Wildcats’ lead to 14-0.
“I saw the quarterback about to get sacked and I seen the checkdown so I just triggered and trusted my instincts and just went and got the ball,” Hairston said when breaking down the first touchdown return.
The next pick would come later in the game as the Commodores were looking to rally back after going down early.
With around four-and-a-half minutes to play in the game, the Wildcats had a 38-21 lead and the Commodores had the ball on their own 40-yard line when the pass intended for a receiver deflected off his hands and into the waiting arms of Hairston. This time he followed some blocks from Wildcat defenders to take it 54 yards to the house for his second pick six of the day and extended the Wildcats’ lead to 45-21.
“I give all the credit to them for paving the way for me to run and that’s just the defense coming together cause we are one,” Hairston said when talking about the blocking on his second touchdown return.
Hairston also thrived in other areas of the stat sheet as well, recording five passes defended, a statistic which means his defensive play caused an incompletion, as well as four solo tackles on the day.
The five passes defended is a new career high for Hairston and the four tackles continued building off his career high of seven that he set in week three against Akron.
“I feel blessed,” Hairston said. “Got to thank the man upstairs for blessing me to be able to do that.”
The strong effort also acted as revenge for the young defender who, against the Commodores last season, was put into the game as a redshirt freshman to replace an injured player and let up a 40-yard pass late in the fourth quarter that set up the game winning touchdown for Vanderbilt.
“Honestly, I was really looking forward to this,” Hairston said. “I could never forget what happened last year, but I’m glad it happened because it taught me how to really take hurt, take pain and then apply it playing.”
Hairston and the Wildcats will look to follow up their performance with another winning effort as they welcome the rival Florida Gators into Kroger Field on Saturday, Sept. 30, at noon ET.
