Mark Stoops signed autographs for fans Saturday but didn't have a lot to say about his team other than it had a lot of work to do. (Vicky Graff Photo)
You knew it was coming, but I was not quite expecting it Saturday during Kentucky’s Fan Day.
Kentucky coach Mark Stoops has been downright giddy about the upcoming football season for months. He’s done nothing to downplay the huge expectations for the Wildcats .
I even asked Stoops at Media Day if he worried that having so much prosperity would be a problem for his team. Kentucky seldom gets a lot of credit going into a season. The Cats are used to dealing with adversity, not prosperity.
“You always toe a fine line there, but our players know that I’m very real with them. It is what it is. They’re going to hear — I’m not one of those guys that I look at my calendar and say, okay, this is an ass-kicking day. You know what I mean? That’s just not — I wear it on my sleeve. If we were bad I’m going to get after them. If they were good I’m going to tell them,” Stoops said after I asked him about dealing with prosperity.
“Right now you can’t pat them on the back too much because there’s too much work to be done. There’s just a ton of work to be done. We have a lot of work to do as a staff and the players and there’s just too much to do. There’s so many situations, you can’t possibly get them all, but we try. We try to get our football awareness and football IQ very high so we play all situations right.”
“I mentioned that to the team yesterday. We could play 95 percent of the game right and play physical and do all those things, but if you play a situation wrong, you lose. There’s a lot of work to do, and that’s our focus. No, I don’t worry about that too much. We’re going to get after them.”
That was what he said Wednesday. By Saturday, I think Stoops was ready to get after them despite the coach smiling a lot during Fan Day, signing autographs and posing for pictures.
“I’ve got nothing to hide. Nobody’s injured. Nothing major. I just don’t want to answer every little thing,” Stoops said after his team’s Fan Day practice. “We’re a little thin. Got a couple guys sick, a couple guys very minor. In a couple of days, we’ll be fine. We’re thin in a few positions, but nothing to tell you or I would.”
Nothing to tell? That is midseason Stoops.
“Still a lot of work to be done. We’ve got a lot of things to get better at and prepped…There are certain question marks on this team. We got to work hard. Get those answers fixed. We got some deficiencies we’ve got to get tightened up,” Stoops said.
Nothing surprising there. No football coach I know is ever happy after four days of practice. In fact, Stoops made it clear he preferred not to be talking to the media at all.
“Fan Day today, I got to talk to you all. I got to be all happy. I’ll get back there (the football facility) and be a grump. We got work to do. I’m confident in the staff and players, but we got a lot of work to do,” Stoops said.
One Response
I admire Coach Stoops. He is a football man to his core, and he knows what must be done. He has a plan to accomplish it, and he has been working tirelessly toward that end.
It should not be in his fabric to be a talker, but a doer.
I recall when Coach Brooks was here how the players all seemed to admire and respect the man. I believe that is true of Coach Stoops with his players as well.