EDITOR'S NOTE: On this day of the Christmas Miracle, we offer this extended look into Kentucky's own miracle – the day UK ended its 26-game losing streak to Tennessee with a wide receiver at the helm of an antiquated offense.

Offensive coordinator Randy Sanders and QB Matt Roark.

ON A VISIT YEARS AGO to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, it was impossible not to notice a solitary sheet of white paper on which were scrawled John Anderson’s hand-written lyrics to “Just a Swingin.’”

Perhaps Kentucky football should follow the museum’s lead and move to preserve that single piece of paper from coach Randy Sanders’ binder on which were printed a handful of plays available to emergency quarterback Matt Roark for the Nov. 26 game against Tennessee.

“Just a Swingin,’” a catchy little tune about Charlotte on her front porch swing, soared to gold record status. In the same manner, that one-page playbook enabled Kentucky to shock Tennessee 10-7, a victory worth its weight in gold as it snapped a 26-year losing streak.

Simple is best sometimes.

“What you see on this sheet is all he knows,” Sanders told his fellow coaches each time they would try to expand the offensive options in the days leading up to the season finale. “If it ain’t on this sheet we can’t run it because it puts us in a position to make a mistake to cost us the game.

“It was a game where we really had to be stubborn, even a little hard-headed,” he said, “and hope that it was enough.”

Glory often fades quickly. Not so here. The blatant audacity of Kentucky’s coaching staff, particularly when contrasted against extenuating circumstances, begs closer examination. Truth be told, its story should forever be woven into the fabric of Kentucky football legend.

The Cats were staring down the barrel of a 4-8 record to end a season so frustrating some were lobbying that coach Joker Phillips be fired. Against that backdrop was the matter of not only losing, yet again, to Tennessee but being a national laughingstock should the Roark experiment blow up in their faces.

“Somebody said coming out, ‘We are either the smartest or the dumbest coaching staff,’” Phillips said afterwards, sporting the wry smile of someone having effectively drawn to an inside straight.

Assistant Tee Martin, in only his second season of college coaching, was duly impressed by what he witnessed unfold at the Nutter Center.

“My compliments to coach Sanders and all the guys for not only putting that plan together, but for believing in the plan,” Martin said. “A lot of times you can put a plan together and if it doesn’t work early, you ditch it. I commend Randy for saying, ‘If it’s not on my sheet of paper, I’m not calling it.’”

Injuries during SEC play had taken out Kentucky’s two quarterbacks – junior Morgan Newton with an ankle and shoulder Oct. 29 against Mississippi State and freshman Maxwell Smith with a shoulder Nov. 19 at Georgia.

The options for third-string quarterback were limited. Tyler Brause was recruited, but had moved to linebacker a year ago. Bookie Cobbins was available, but it would mean burning a redshirt for one game. The staff settled on Roark, a senior who had played quarterback four years earlier at North Cobb High School in Acworth, Ga. By coincidence, Roark’s coach his senior year in high school was the same coach for his senior season at Kentucky – Tee Martin.

“Matt was the perfect fit,” Martin said. “When I coached him in high school that’s the offense we ran – shotgun with a run game for the quarterback and throw it a little bit. He felt at home.”

THE STAFF BEGAN COBBLING A STRATEGY on Sunday after returning from a road loss at Georgia. They knew it would be limited, if only by time, but even they had to be a bit nervous about the final product. Roark would take the field in a key Southeastern Conference battle wearing a wristband that contained only 51 plays.

“We normally go into a game with 150 to 200 different calls. More than that in some cases with the multiple formations you can use,” Sanders said. “We had 51, that’s it. And of the 51, we probably ran 30. That would be a guess. Sometimes we ran the same play out of four different formations.”

JOKER PHILLIPS

The process was so intense, a caffeine-infused, near round-the-clock marathon, and moved so quickly that Phillips had to halt the proceedings to interject the voice of common sense.

“We were going over the plan on Sunday, late Sunday night and all day Monday,” Phillips began. “Then I asked the staff, “Don’t you think we need to get Matt over here and talk to him about what we’re going to do with him?”

Roark had been told after the Georgia game that he might run a few Wildcat formation plays, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that the career-long wide receiver learned he was about to make his first and only collegiate start at quarterback.

“Matt came to me on Tuesday and said, ‘Coach, how much Wildcat are we going to run?’” Martin said. “And I said, ‘It might be all Wildcat.’ He was like, ‘For real?’ I said yes and asked, ‘How do you feel about that?’ He did not fret. He took it on.”

“He was excited, you know, why not be?” Phillips said. “If you were a wide receiver and now you get a chance to touch the ball every snap? Matt was excited about it.”

In the terminology of today, the system is called the Wildcat, first made famous in 2008 by Miami Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown, who occasionally would replace the quarterback as the one taking direct snaps from the center. The key word is occasionally. When a team uses that formation exclusively, as was the case with Kentucky against Tennessee, they are, in effect, turning back the clock to the origin of football and the Single Wing or the Delaware Wing-T. It was last used in the NFL by the 1947 Pittsburgh Steelers.

“I told the staff, ‘If nothing else, we’re making Tennessee waste a lot of practice time,’” Sanders said. “We had been spreading out for the most part so I’m sure they spent a lot of time practicing those things. When we came out and played like we did, I knew they wouldn’t have a big plan.”

Kentucky implemented the new system on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thanksgiving Day.

MATT ROARK

“As the week went on, the players were starting to get excited about doing it,” Martin said. “They saw that this could work and their confidence in Matt grew. The kids were happy for him.”

Instructions to Roark were as simple as the game plan.

“We told him, ‘Call it right in the huddle. Don’t turn it over. And we have a chance,’” Martin said. “We knew it was going to be a grind it out game, and coach Sanders did a great job of coaching Matt up during the week, managing the package he had and calling stuff the kid felt he could handle.”

The next challenge for Kentucky was to keep the news secret. That would seem nearly impossible in today’s age of social media, but the Cats pulled it off with a bit of gamesmanship and the luck of the calendar.

Phillips spoke truthfully Wednesday when he told reporters that quarterbacks Newton and Smith were able to practice, though he said as little as possible. “Both of them got reps today,” the coach said. “We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.” Since practices are closed, the extent of those workouts was never known.

Thursday of game week is the day when only Phillips is available, but this was no ordinary Thursday, it was Thanksgiving Day so the media turnout was small. The secret was safe Friday as there is never media availability the day before a game during the season.

Tennessee did eventually hear whispers about Roark running the Wildcat formation, but never anticipated that their long-time rival’s entire offense had been overhauled in less than a week.

KENTUCKY'S FIRST OFFENSIVE POSSESSION came at 12:43 at UK’s own 31 yard line. To its credit, the UK staff acted out the mystery to the final chapter by having Smith, Newton and Roark all gather around Sanders near the sidelines before Roark broke ranks and trotted toward the huddle.

CoShik Williams scored UK's lone touchdown.

“I knew keeping it a secret couldn’t hurt,” Sanders said. “I figured even one play without them knowing he was the quarterback would be an advantage. I’m sure it caught them by surprise a little bit.”

Kentucky promptly put together a 15-play drive that consumed 7 minutes, 57 seconds and resulted in a 24-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead. Fourteen of the 15 plays were rushing attempts and all but one had positive yardage.

“I knew that scoring on the first drive was going to be critical for us,” Sanders said. “I knew once we had the first drive and they got their guys over to the sidelines and made adjustments that it was going to make it a lot harder for us. And sure enough, it was.

“But that first drive was huge,” Sanders added. “Not only for the score, but for the confidence of the offense and the confidence of the defense. It gave us a little inspiration.”

Kentucky, never veering from its antiquated offense, would go on to shock Tennessee 10-7, ending a ridiculous 26-game losing streak and doing so, appropriately enough, with an equally preposterous game plan. The Cats had 62 total plays, 56 of those by the run, and managed only 10 first downs.

“We thought they might come out in a Wildcat but didn’t know it was going to be the whole game,” Tennessee coach Derek Dooley said. “We had to sit there and basically play Wing-T football.”

Even Kentucky fans savoring every morsel of the Volunteers’ misery can understand Dooley’s disbelief, the implausibility of it all.

After all, who – with nerves brittle from a difficult season, with livelihoods potentially in the balance, with public scorn eagerly anticipating failure – would spit in the face of caution and brazenly step out on little more than faith and confidence in one another?

And a simple, single sheet of paper.