2009 Liberty Bowl.. Kentucky vs East Carolina | Fans of the SEC's Blog

The first half of this game looked like it should have for the Wildcats, they have been off for a month and it showed. The half-time score was 16-3, East Carolina and this one looked like the Cats wouldn't win a bowl game for the third year in a row, and then the start of the second half began..
David Jones ran the opening second half kickoff back 99 yards and later on in the quarter, Mike Hartline threw a 20 yard TD pass to Kyrus Lanxter to tie it up. Whatever Coach Rich Brooks said in the locker room at the half must have registered. The Cats were fired up. With a late field goal to close the third quarter, the Pirates led 19-16.
The Wildcats open the fourth quarter with a 34 yard field goal to tie the game at 19-19 and then the game got interesting..Micah Johnson appeared to have returned a fumble for a touchdown, but a review overturned the play and the Pirates retained possession. Just three plays later, Ventrell Jenkins went rumbling down the sideline with another fumble, this one was also reviewed to see if Jenkins knee was down as he had the ball on the ground. This play stood and UK now took the lead 25-19 as the PAT was blocked. On the kickoff the Pirates return man had his knee called down after replay and ECU had to start at their own one yard line with just over three minutes to go in the game. The UK defense stiffened and forced ECU to punt with two and a half minutes to go. With a couple of first down and the running of MVP running back Tony Dixon, The Kentucky Wildcats ran out the clock to win the 2009 Liberty Bowl 25-19. This marked the first time in school history thar UK has won three straight bowl games.

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January 3, 2009 09:55 AM ET

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Just a side note: the big ten officials doing this game stunk. I never saw so many missed calls in one game. It appeared three times that on kickoffs that ECU players had a knee on the ground and with a official in plain site nothing was called.. only time something was called was when the replay official buzzed down and that was after ESPN had said something about it first