Kentucky coach Mark Stoops remembers Vanderbilt coming to Lexington in 2022 and beating UK. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops wasn’t surprised by Vanderbilt’s 40-35 upset of No. 7 Alabama last Saturday in Nashville.
“You don’t have to worry about selling Vanderbilt anymore, telling you how good they are and how good (coach) Clark Lea has done,” Stoops said of the Commodores Monday. “I have a lot of respect for Clark and what he’s done and what he’s been building for some time.
“They beat us not long ago (and) I know what he’s capable of and what type of quality person and coach he is in the job that he’s doing at Vanderbilt. Congratulations to them to see some of that hard work paying off.”
Stoops and the Wildcats (3-2, 1-2) had a bye week last week, the first of two this season. Before taking the week off, Kentucky defeated Ole Miss 20-17 on Sept. 28 in Oxford. Stoops said the bye week was good for his squad.
The week off, Stoops said, gave Kentucky a chance to “heal up, get their minds right, bodies right” and an opportunity to “get some work done.”
“It’s good to get back here after getting a couple of days off,” he said.
Despite Vanderbilt’s historic win over the Crimson Tide, Stoops said his team’s approach to Vanderbilt (3-2, 1-1) won’t change this week.
“For us, regardless of what happens to our opponents, it’s always about us and our preparation and what we try to do,” Stoops said. “I felt like last week was very productive. I feel like our team has been progressing the past several weeks and we need to continue to do that as we hit the middle part of our schedule.”
Kentucky defeated the Commodores 45-28 last year in Nashville. In their last meeting in Lexington, Vandy edged the Wildcats 24-21. He said the Commodores’ win over Alabama wasn’t a fluke.
“Vanderbilt was very impressive this past week. Before that, they had the bye and they played Missouri extremely well,” Stoops said. “They could very easily be sitting here at 2-0 in the conference against two top 10 opponents. So, a very good football team. Our team just needs to be up for the challenge, we need to worry about ourselves and prepare the right way.”
Stoops also is glad to be back at home following a successful road debut at Ole Miss.
“(We’re) glad to be at home this week, in a night game, so I hope to have a tremendous environment here Saturday night,” Stoops said. “It was good to get a big victory a week ago on the road. Hopefully, our fans will be here in full effect on Saturday and our team will continue to play better and better.”
Gametracker: Vandy at Kentucky, 7:45 p.m., Saturday. TV/Radio: SEC Network, UK Radio Network
9 Responses
Vandy was viewed as the game in which UK needed to man-handle and dismantle Vandy in contrast to the way SC devoured UK. Now Vandy os viewed as a more lofty team with some genuine SEC caliber players and a coach who is succeeding to get the most out of them.
Before Vandy upset mighty ALA, I thought UK should wallop Vandy by 40-10, but now the game is shaping up to be a closer match and a 30-12 win could be considered a full reversal of the SC embarrassment.
Nobody respects Vanderbilt even though they beat us a couple of years ago. This has all of the makings of the South Carolina game. Are we mentally strong enough to take care of business against a team we should beat? That seems to be the gameday question that pops up with our team this year.
Seems to be a GameDay probably too many times during Stoops’s tenure. He simply does not have the team prepared to start/finish a game they should handle with ease. UK should win this game but does the team and coaching staff think the same?
You never know what you are going to get with UK. They can show up and play like they have the past two games or they can not show up and play like they did against SC. Maybe that is part of the intrigue with Stoops’ teams. We know they can beat anyone on a given night and we know they can be beaten by anyone on a given night. You just never know which team is going to show up.
2 teams going up or possibly down – big frigging game for both.
A big question continues to hang over the BBN from week-to-week and that is will Trayunum ever see the field this year? Could the medical team really have misdiagnosed that badly or has the Cali-fraudi coverups invaded the FB locker room?
When they pulled the pins out, his hand has swollen up afterwards and they are just been precaution that’s what I hear
Every comment, observation & question is 100% legitimate sine Stoops has a history not being able to send a team out of the locker room with a focus on football. Only on rare occasions will the players look like they are fully alert to start a game.
One question to all of you, why being so negative no time for that. You guys didn’t give us a chance to beat Old Miss. We had good timing off week off to get heal and this team has made some strides each week. Go Cats