Asked after Kentucky’s 20-13 win over Florida on Saturday if he felt he had been outcoached, Florida’s Dan Mullen went into full-blown defensive mode. Florida had 382 yards. Kentucky had more than 150 fewer. Florida held the ball longer, outrushed and outpassed UK, held the Wildcats to 1-of-9 on 3rd downs. No, Mullen didn’t feel like he had been outcoached. But he did a great job of making the case for why he did. You don’t beat the No. 10 team in the nation by getting outgained by 150 yards, losing the time of possession, only drawing even on turnovers. But Kentucky did — in no small part because of The Stand.

Kentucky football has few historic touchstone plays. The 1997 season brought Tim Couch’s overtime pass to Craig Yeast that knocked off Alabama. The 2007 season included Steve Johnson stunning Louisville late, and Andre Woodson and Johnson stunning LSU in triple-overtime. And 2016 had Lamar Jackson’s fumble and Austin MacGinnis’ clutch kick. But 2021 has The Stand.

On Saturday night, Kentucky led 20-13, but Florida had driven the ball from its 38 to a 1st and goal at the UK 9-yard line. Florida ran 7 more plays in the game and ended up only a single yard closer to the end zone. Kentucky defended the run and defended the pass, and the loud and proud Wildcats crowd helped by inducing a pair of false start penalties when UF seemed unable to hear when to wait and when to move. When Emory Jones’ final pass fell incomplete, it was a testimony to an outstanding and determined group of Wildcats defenders, who had bent and bent but would not break.

When Mark Stoops was hired at Kentucky, the idea of bringing the Wildcats back as a defensive squad seemed hard to grasp. Most of Kentucky’s positive recent memories came under coaches who recognized that UK might outscore good teams if they learned how to zig while the rest of the conference zagged. Whether it was Couch and Hal Mumme’s Air Raid or Rich Brooks’ mid-2000s passing attack, Kentucky had to gain yards and territory and points to win important games. There wasn’t another way. Steal games like a thief in the night.

Stoops has paved another way, sometimes inadvertently. He has never had a 3,000-yard passer at Kentucky. Wan’Dale Robinson is by far the best receiver he has featured. Kentucky has won games since 2016 by leaning heavily on a power running game and a defense that has changed everything most of us ever knew about Kentucky football.

Running quarterbacks? In the 1990s and 2000s, every quarterback who could run a sub-6.0-second 40-yard dash seemed to torch UK’s defense. Not now. Backup quarterbacks? Another unending curse that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Getting gashed for big plays by opposing offenses? Well, Florida had 28 plays of 20-plus yards coming into this game, by far the most in the SEC. Kentucky allowed them just 1 such play — a 22-yard pass. But finishing? Well, there is always that curse. From 1993’s Chris Doering defeat sandwich to Nick Saban’s paralyzing Bluegrass Miracle in 2002, Kentucky has always had trouble finishing.

Which is the beauty of The Stand — Kentucky finished. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t even explicable, but it happened. Of course, it happened because of the remarkable players who changed Kentucky history on Saturday. Take Josh Paschal. He beat cancer back in 2018. What could Florida do to him? Take Jacquez Jones. Overlooked by Lane Kiffin, he apparently wasn’t good enough to be part of a very ho-hum Ole Miss defense. So he headed north and is having a season to remember as a Wildcat. Take Trevin Wallace — a 4-star deep South standout, he’s the kind of player UK doesn’t successfully recruit before the last few years. Now Paschal was living in Florida’s backfield, making tackles for loss and coming up with a game-changing blocked field goal. Now Wallace was snagging the blocked kick out of the air and running it back to give UK a lead it wouldn’t surrender. And on the game’s final drive, on 4th and goal, with UF holding one final play, it was Jones who leaped skyward and got a finger on Jones’ pass into the end zone, knocking it incomplete.

Kentucky is winning, and it’s doing it by all but admitting that it might not blow you off the ball and light up the scoreboard. You’ll gain some yards, you’ll probably score some points. But there is a line that Kentucky’s defense will draw, and when the game is on the line, you will not cross it. And however long that culture holds, however many games Kentucky wins, one moment to remember will always be The Stand.