ORLANDO, Fla. — Winning 10 games, beating Penn State on New Year’s Day and finishing in the Top 20 is no small deal for the Kentucky Wildcats.
So when Mark Stoops took a seat on the podium flanked by linebacker Josh Allen and running back Benny Snell Jr. after Tuesday’s 27-24 victory in the Citrus Bowl, the coach understandably was beyond excited.
“It was extremely important to this team, to all of us, to come home with some hardware, to come home with a trophy,” Stoops said.
Snell ran for 144 yards and two touchdowns to become Kentucky’s career rushing leader and helped the 16th-ranked Wildcats end their best season in more than four decades on a winning note.
Snell scored on runs of 2 and 12 yards in the second half, then carried for a couple of crucial first downs to help Kentucky (10-3) run out the clock after Penn State’s Trace McSorley trimmed a 27-7 deficit to three points despite playing with a foot injury.
McSorley threw for 246 yards and two touchdowns, and the Nittany Lions’ career passing and wins leader also rushed for a team-high 75 yards and one TD.
“The same thing that troubled us throughout the season troubled us here again today: dropped balls, missed opportunities. That’s really kind of the story of the game,” said coach James Franklin, whose Nittany Lions (9-4) started slowly on offense, missed one field goal and had another blocked.
Franklin declined to get into details about McSorley’s injury.
“We don’t typically get into specifics. … Obviously Trace was experiencing some discomfort. The doctors felt like he could go, but it really just came down to Trace on how Trace felt,” Franklin said.
McSorley, who was to undergo further evaluation, said he hadn’t received “definitive information” on whether his foot was broken.
“I’ve been through too much. The team has been through too much. … They told me it was a matter of if I could deal with the discomfort,” the quarterback said. “If I could do that, I was going to play.”
Penn State trailed 27-7 entering the fourth quarter, but McSorley’s wasn’t finished. His 1-yard TD run capped a 75-yard drive, and he followed with an 18-yard TD pass to Pat Friermuth to cut Kentucky’s lead to six.
The Nittany Lions marched to the Kentucky 14 on their next possession and pulled within 27-24 with 4:12 left.
Thanks to Snell, a junior who already has declared for the NFL Draft, McSorley didn’t get the ball back until just one second was left on the clock.
Lynn Bowden Jr. scored on a 58-yard punt return for Kentucky. Allen, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, had three of the Wildcats’ six sacks.
“The three guys we knew we needed to stop were Bowden, Snell and Allen. All three of them showed up today,” Franklin said.
“They’ve built their program around those guys. They built their season around those guys,” Franklin added. “They made plays. That’s what great players do.”
The Nittany Lions fell short of their goal to finish with 10 wins in three consecutive seasons for the first time since 1980-82. Three of their four losses were by a total of eight points.
