Vicky Graff Photo
Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops would be the first to tell you that there are no moral victories, only actual victories. So, despite the fact that UK went toe-to-toe with top-ranked Georgia before dropping a 13-12 heartbreaker, Stoops knows it’s still a loss.
However, there will be a lot that the UK head coach will like after Saturday’s contest. Namely, after getting beaten badly by South Carolina at Kroger Field last weekend, Stoops challenged his team to show more fight, to execute the game plan and to play a cleaner game. Kentucky was able to accomplish all of that, while maintaining the lead into the fourth quarter against a national championship contender.
“I’m not saying I’m pleased with a moral victory. We’re 10 years past that,” Stoops said following Saturday’s game. “But I do care about the way we play. I care about our preparation, I care about the way we represent the fan base, the way we represent this university, the way we play. And we played hard. I’m very proud of our coaches, very proud of our players because, let’s be honest, that was a hard week. And they responded and played exceptionally hard.”
After last week, it could have been easy for Kentucky’s players to not work hard or to wallow in their sub-par performance against the Gamecocks. However, Stoops saw his team and coaching staff do exactly what they needed to do.
“Really proud of our players, the way they fought and competed,” Stoops said. “I thought our coaches did a really good job this week. As you could imagine, a very challenging week coming off the way we performed seven days ago in this stadium. Proud of our players, how hard they played and picking themselves up off the mat after a performance a week ago that none of us were very pleased with. And had to rebound and play the number one-ranked team in the country. And we came out and played them toe-to-toe.”
Kentucky got a huge defensive effort in Saturday’s game. The Cats held the Bulldogs to just 262 yards of total offense and had three tackles for loss. Ty Bryant, Zion Childress and D’Eryk Jackson each had six tackles for the Cats. Bryant and Childress each had a tackle for loss for the Cats. Stoops was proud of how hard his team competed again this week.
“I think our team was embarrassed by the way we played (last week),” Stoops said. “I thought we played hard but we didn’t play very good. To play and beat this team, you’re going to have to make plays and I thought we did that. We had a good recipe to try to get this victory, just fell a little short.”
Kentucky-Georgia Football
Photos by Vicky Graff
5 Responses
I agree with Stoops, the Cats played well last night. Just not well enough to win. Erase a couple of mistakes and who knows??? When they are ready and prepared to play, the Cats can play with anyone which begs the question, what happed last week?
Last week is 100% on Stoops & his staff.
They are CLUELESS about how to prepare a team mentally.
Thai week the players pulled together and played at 110% effort in spite of some dumb play calling and pathetic clock management.
Stoops & staff gave IGA every opportunity to overcome the great UK DL.
The UK secondary to not cover snail going toward the end zone!
I am very happy for the effort they played with last night. Having said that, it should make them even more upset because with this same type of effort, they would have beaten South Carolina, and to be even more blunt, they really should have beaten Georgia last night. UK was the better team in both of those games. UK lost last night because of a turnover and some bad officiating; not because Georgia was better.
I am happy for Stoops and the players. They did what the fans asked by being prepared to play and playing like they wanted it. Too bad it took a loss to SC to bring that out of the coaches and the players.
My question would be, Why does UK seem to be one of the very few teams each year where their receivers cannot get open? You see other teams where receivers make a cut and are wide open but you seldom ever see that for UK. The receivers have to fight for anything thrown their way. Is it the routes they run, the inability to run routes, or the qb not getting rid of the ball on time?
Right on all counts.
UK should be 3-0.
If Stoops had stayed home last night, UK would probably be 2-1.
We should at least get a participation certificate for that losing effort against Georgia.