Kentucky LB JJ Weaver: 'Florida wasn't ready for us'

Kentucky knocked off No. 22 Florida in dominant fashion with a 33-14 win on Saturday, keyed by a tremendous rushing performance by tailback Ray Davis and a stalwart defensive performance by JJ Weaver and company.

But the defense was equally impressive in limiting Graham Mertz and company to just two scores. Was that enough to finally earn Kentucky some respect nationally, at 5-0 on the season?

“We’re going to see next week. We’re going to see next week,” Wildcats linebacker JJ Weaver said. “Florida’s a good team, but they wasn’t that good to be honest with you. They wasn’t.”

Weaver went on to note that he fully expected a dominant win over the SEC East opponent. Kentucky’s win on Saturday was the program’s third in a row, a far cry from the once-dominant position Florida found itself in as it won 31 straight in the annual game.

So a big home win? There wasn’t anything that surprised JJ Weaver about it.

“Nothing really. I mean I trust my guys,” he said. “We watch film. We was on it. Practice all week we was flying around, being dominant. So at a point I already knew Florida wasn’t ready for us.”

Florida unable to stop Ray Davis

While a lot of things went wrong for Florida on Saturday, the most simple explanation for the lopsided loss was that Florida couldn’t stop Kentucky running back Ray Davis.

The Wildcats rushed for 329 yards against the Gators, with Davis accumulating 280 of those. Afterwards, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops spoke with ESPN’s Katie George, where he elaborated on Kentucky’s performance as a whole.

“I loved the way we started. I thought we started extremely fast. Physical on both sides of the line-of-scrimmage,” Stoops said. “Obviously had some explosive runs and plays in the first half. Slowed down a little bit in the second half, but you knew that Gators were going to fight back. That’s what’s going to happen.”

With JJ Weaver and the defense on point, the Wildcats leader had nothing but love for Davis’ amazing statistical afternoon against an SEC rival.

“He was special today. He’s been special,” Stoops said, regarding Davis. “To get those kind of impressive runs against the Gators, with the way he runs it and then the receiving yards, you know he deserves a lot of credit. I’ll let you talk to him. He’s a baller.”