Bobby Petrino proved he could pick up where he left off as a head coach at Arkansas.
Keshawn Simpson ran for a pair of 3-yard touchdowns and Antonio Andrews added his own 3-yard score as Western Kentucky beat Kentucky 35-26 Saturday night making Petrino a winner in his debut at his newest school.
“I love winning, and this is a great win for us,” Petrino said. “This is not about me. This is about our players and our assistant coaches and how hard they worked and how much they invested into this team and into this game and I’m just really proud of our players.”
The Hilltoppers also beat their in-state rival for a second straight year, though they didn’t need overtime like they did last year in this win over the SEC program. They outgained Kentucky 487-419 in total offense and held the ball for 35 minutes.
“Starting off the season undefeated, 1-0 in the SEC, we have another tough opponent next week in Tennessee, another SEC school,” Andrews said. “So we’re hoping to go 2-0. It’s a great start to the year.”
The loss ruined Kentucky coach Mark Stoops’ debut. Coordinator Neal Brown’s Air Raid offense struggled against a Western Kentucky defense returning seven starters from a bowl team that went 7-6 last season in the Sun Belt Conference. “We looked out of place,” Stoops said.
Brandon Doughty was 27 of 34 for 271 yards and a TD, numbers that would have been better except for at least four drops including a would-be touchdown.
Petrino’s debut was everything Western Kentucky wanted from the coach’s first game. Arkansas fired Petrino in April 2012 for misleading school officials about a motorcycle accident that eventually revealed his mistress was a passenger and employed by the coach. He remains undefeated in season openers, improving to 9-0.
Western Kentucky went 75 yards or longer on each of the TD drives with Simpson scoring twice, the second putting the Hilltoppers up 21-10 in the second quarter.
“Plain and simple, they were better than us today,” Kentucky quarterback Maxwell Smith said.
