Mark Stoops, Ray Davis explain emotions of beating top 10-ranked Louisville

Kentucky rattled off 31 points in the final three quarters on Saturday en route to a 38-31 victory over No. 10 Louisville, securing the Governor’s Cup trophy for the fifth-straight season.

The Wildcats’ victory was capped by a Ray Davis 37-yard touchdown rush in the final minute of regular season before finally being sealed by a Jordan Lovett interception in the endzone on the other side of the field. Head coach Mark Stoops couldn’t say enough about his team’s magical comeback.

“Whatever you want to call it, perseverance, resolve, all of the stuff us coaches use — but just really proud of our team,” Stoops said on the field after the game. “It’s been a tough year. We’ve had a brutal schedule, they were the fourth top-10 team we’ve played. We were bound and determined to get one of them.”

Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary threw for three touchdowns during the contest, but a timely interception allowed Louisville to tie the game in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. He came back on the ensuing drive to complete a 23-yard pass to Barion Brown to set the Wildcats up inside field goal range one play before Davis ripped off his go-ahead score from 37 yards out.

Davis also eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark on the season during the game — a mark he has eclipsed at three programs since joining the FBS college football level at Temple, Vanderbilt and now Kentucky.

“You’ve just gotta look at all the adversity that we’ve dealt with all season,” Davis said alongside his head coach. “We’ve had some ups and downs throughout the year but we stuck together. We came in and we always said we wanted togetherness, stick together and do what we got to do and come on and get the W — and that’s what we did.

“We didn’t care about any other games before — what matters is that we got the victory and it’s forever L’s down around here. … I wanted to put the whole city on my back. I know the whole city election to want this W so I told our coaches to put it on my back and I’ll go out there and get us the victory.”

Much to the excitement of Big Blue Nation, the loss officially eliminates any hope the Cardinals had of making the College Football Playoff this season while Kentucky gets a well-needed boost in their bowl resume.