LEXINGTON, Ky. — Ty Bryant was lying on his back on the Kroger Field playing surface. Kentucky’s senior safety had just picked off Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis for Bryant’s fourth interception in UK’s past three games.
Looking up, Bryant saw something he never expected.
Hovering over him as the first person who reached him after the interception was not one of the other Wildcats defenders.
It was Will Stein.
“When I saw Ty laying on his back, and I was a little worried (about a possible injury),” the UK head coach recounted afterward. “But he was smiling on his back.”
In what is becoming Kentucky football’s dream season, no one may have more reason to smile than Bryant.
Faced with a classic “trap game,” Kentucky spotted underdog Vanderbilt a 10-0 lead, then roared back for a 34-17 victory Saturday night before a sellout crowd of 61,843 at Kroger Field.
UK quarterback Kenny Minchey threw for a touchdown and ran for one. Tight end Willie Rodriguez caught a team-high six passes and ran for a TD. Fourth-string QB Brennen Ward also ran for a score, as the ever-inventive Kentucky offensive brain trust had the Cats snap the ball to five different players over the course of the game.
As the son of former Kentucky wide receiver Cisco Bryant and a Lexington product who grew up following the Wildcats through their historically uneven football fortunes, Ty Bryant is relishing now checking the SEC standings and seeing the name “Kentucky” on top.
“Being a kid from Lexington, obviously, my whole life I’ve kept up with Kentucky football,” Bryant said. “I’ve never seen us get to a high start like this.”.
For a Kentucky defense that does a lot of bending but — other than the second half of the 45-17 loss to Alabama in Week 2 — has not done excessive breaking, Bryant has been a ball-hawking stalwart.
After recording an interception in UK’s 35-34 overtime win over LSU two weeks ago and claiming two picks in Kentucky’s 21-13 victory over Oklahoma last week, Bryant foiled a fourth-quarter Vanderbilt drive when he picked Curtis on a second-and-4 play from the Wildcats’ 39-yard line.
With open field in front of him, it fleetingly looked like Bryant might be headed for his first college pick-six.
Alas, Vanderbilt running back Sedrick Alexander wrestled him to the turf at the Vandy 42-yard line.
“My group chat, my friend-group chat, is blowing up, talking I’m slow,” Bryant said, shaking his head and smiling.
Even if Bryant didn’t get to tally it, his pick set up Minchey to score the game-sealing touchdown on a 1-yard sneak that put the Wildcats ahead 34-17.
Bryant’s appreciation for the joyride Kentucky football has so far taken through 2026 was forged by what he went through the previous two seasons.
He was part of the 2024 Kentucky team that finished 1-7 in the SEC. Last season, the former Frederick Douglass High School star was on the field as Vandy and Louisville combined to outscore Mark Stoops’ final Kentucky team 86-17 in the last two regular-season games.
Bryant earned second team All-SEC honors from the league’s coaches last season after picking off four passes. When UK parted ways with the coaching staff that had recruited him, Bryant would have had ample options had he chosen to depart via the transfer portal.
“He was one of the pieces that we had to get back when we first got here,” Stein said.
Ultimately, Bryant said he prayed on his stay-or-go decision and felt led to remain at UK. “I’m just so glad that I’m a part of this team,” he said.
Through eight games this season, Bryant has already matched his interception total of four from a season ago. With 59 tackles, he is closing in on the 76 stops he made last year.
“Ty’s had a great run,” Stein said. “He’s played really well.”
After the open week, Kentucky will face three remaining league games — at Tennessee (Nov. 7), vs. Florida (Nov. 14) and at Missouri (Nov. 21).
In what seems likely to be the final season of the SEC Championship Game, the Cats control their own destiny in their drive to reach the event for the first time in school history.
“Everyone still doubts us, and we know that,” Bryant said.
For UK to go where it has never gone before, Bryant said there is one clear area in need of improvement.
Kentucky having trailed in all six of the games that now comprise its six-game winning streak, Bryant says if the Cats can just figure out how to get off to faster starts, every member of the Big Blue Nation may end up smiling.
“I feel like if we can just start fast and (keep doing) everything else that we’re doing right now, then we might be an even more dangerous team,” Bryant said.