Kentucky Wildcat Football: No More Rushing the Field?

Tee Martin claims the job Randy Sanders did this year was one of the best he’s ever seen (a grain of salt just flew out of my computer as I was typing that) and Stuart Hines saying that for him, it was all about breaking the streak (a little more believable). However you choose to view the game on Saturday, it was monumentous for Kentucky and saved what was truly a hard season to be a fan. As an undergrad from 2002-2007 I was witness to some of the most fantastic acts of futility, from the dark years of the Rich Brooks era to the to the dawn of the bowl streak, and Saturday was still one of the best days in my life as a fan. I, as a man of his late twenties, took flight once again with the exuberance of yesteryear and stormed the field, jumping, screaming, and telling every football player I saw,” I’ve been waiting my entire life for this!” It was truly an exciting moment, and one that still elicits goosebumps thinking about it now. But it led to a moment of reflection as the frenzy was waning, looking up into the stands I fondly remembered all the times I had been there before.

My field rushing experience actually started in 2006, when an enterprising young team with emerging playmakers had taken powerhouse Georgia down to the wire, scoring 14 points in the 4th quarter and making their defensive stand to save the game. With 51 seconds left, a very dangerous Trevard Lindley intercepted a pass to seal the win and I took off for the field. The celebration on the field was uproarious, and set a tone for the next year that would will forever remain unequaled in my lifetime. Two more times I found myself dancing on the field, the first after beating top-10 Louisville and then once more for for #1 LSU. The moments couldn’t get any better, but in the waning moments of that season the question was posed: When next? Surely we couldn’t repeat a field rushing if we beat one of those teams again, that would be uncouth and a glaring display of our shock when our football team beat anybody of note. But one thing was agreed upon: if we took down Tennessee we were storming that turf. It never happened, and as friends graduated and moved away the original crew thinned, leaving only a skeleton crew of non-athletes with turf running experience.

On Saturday the group that took the field with me only numbered at three, and only two had been on the field before. But it didn’t matter, experience can be gained quickly when you are sprinting for that bleacher wall. But as I looked up at the seat I was formerly occupying (it’s way up there), I realized the checklist is complete; we had rushed the field against everybody.  Sure, the streak against Florida still exists, but I don’t want to be the middle-age guy hopping the field dragging his crying kids so he could capture that one moment of joy again. Okay, maybe I would have done it for Tennessee, but beyond that it’s hard to think of another team that would cause such a reaction. Spurrier’s streak is over, and we even rushed the field for that. But I didn’t. Beating a man is not something I consider rush worthy, even if he is a visor wearing, arrogant douche. So what is left? What opportunity is left for future students to run out to the 50 yard line and jump around until they feel like stopping? I may be transforming into an old fart, but rushing the field should only happen during an historic win and I don’t see too many of those left. So if not Louisville, Tennessee, or a #1 team (which I maintain we can’t do again; we’ve already done it), then who?