Vicky Graff Photo
Georgia is about a three-touchdown favorite over Kentucky in Saturday’s game in Athens, but Georgia coach Kirby Smart basically gave UK fans a pep talk.
Kentucky lost 35-13 at South Carolina last week, its fourth straight loss to the Gamecocks. The Cats are now 6-10 over the last two seasons and are 8-22 against Power Conference foes in the last three years. One of those losses was a 13-12 setback to Georgia in Lexington last season when UK had plenty of chances to win but could not muster enough offense.
“Mark’s one of my close friends because we’ve been in it the longest together. He’s been in it longer than me. I text him all the time,” Smart said. “It’s really amazing what he’s done at Kentucky. It’s one of those things, I hope they appreciate what he’s done because he’s done some incredible things, broken some records up there, been extremely competitive in our league.
“That’s not necessarily by record, I mean it is by record sometimes, but the games that he’s been in and the way they’ve played are incredible. You can tell he inspires his team to play extremely hard, and they’re always physical.”
So even praising Stoops, Smart admitted the record has not been sparkling lately, and that’s what has UK fans upset.
Smart was right, though, about UK being physical against the Bulldogs. That’s why even though UK has not beaten Georgia, it has been in a position to win games because of its physical play, especially on defense. Kentucky could have beaten then No. 1 Georgia last season, but an interception return for a touchdown by Zion Childress was overturned.
“Their backs are physical. Every time we play them, their offensive line. They have a defensive head coach who believes in running the ball. They have really good run schemes, and they have really big physical guys, and their backs match their O-line in terms of size, both backs,” Smart said.
Georgia got a wakeup call last week when it lost at home to Alabama, the one team Smart has had trouble beating.
We gotta go play a really good football team,” Smart said. “I’m glad that they were affected and hurt (by the loss). There’s a lot of football teams right now where the kids don’t care. When people hurt, you usually get a better response. You get a better mechanism of buy-in or doubling-down or something, of knowing who I am and knowing what I’ve got to work on. That part excites me.”
”It’s always the most physical game when we play these guys. We’ve had head-to-head battles many times with these guys, and coach Stoops’ teams are always physical, so we know it’ll be physical.”
Junior defensive tackle Jordan Hall told media members Monday that Georgia had to respond better to adversity than it did against Alabama.
”We built for adversity,” Hall said. “I feel like we can take a punch and give a punch back. That’s something that we pride ourselves on.”
Georgia junior receiver London Humphreys knows what the Kentucky defense will try to do.
“We know Kentucky’s going to be physical, but we feel like if we do our job, we can give our offense what it needs,” Humphreys said. “We’ve got a lot of football left to play. Coach tells us all the time, block out the outside noise and keep getting better, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
16 Responses
Kirby Smart is correct, Stoops has done a terrific job of bringing KY back from the dead after Joker Phillips. However, ever since his flirtation with the A&M job, it seems like he didn't expect to be at KY and took his eyes off of what has happening. The alternative theory is that he knew exactly was happening to the sport and he knew KY could not compete in the NIL arena with either resources ($) or staff who could adapt to the new way college football operates. Clearly, he does not.
Stoops has done a remarkable job at making KY competitive but at the moment he appears to be floundering and looking for help before he drowns. But hey, he's getting $9.0 Million per year; so if he is uncomfortable in the current pool temperature, he can always get out of the water. But he shouldn't look for any sympathy from the fans. They don't make $9.0 million for having to watch the product he is putting on the field.
Fair analysis!
Stoops hasn't done anything good since being passed over by Texas A&M other than the win at Ole Miss last year. When another coach starts praising an opposing coach, you better get another coach. That is coach talk for I know I can beat this guy…please don't fire him.
We got extremely lucky last year in the Ole Miss game.
Ever so true, UKfanfromtheWest! Sadly, that one win may be more costly than a loss. Any win against any team delays his departure.
I think UK fans would appreciate Stoops stop the coaching malpractice and be a decent human being and quit now or at the end of the year.
Not going to happen UKFan
It's hard to believe he's going to hang around until 2031.
He's already run out of excuses for all the losing.
"Got to get back to work." "Learning experience." "Gotta look at the film."
What will he be saying 6 years from now?
As usual…it is always about " what have you done for me lately" and Stoops fails miserably. If you don't have recruiting, player development, or coaching it accelerates to the bottom and welcome back UK.
Stoops knows he is on his last leg and making 9million you know if you don't beat Georgia ur gone
Not going to beat georgia
And he won't be gone!
,All of the wringing of hands is pointless because of the contract terms. 2031 is the current end of the contract, but there is an automatic extension provision that adds a year after the completion of each season unless Barnhart intentionally intervenes to stop it, and so far, he has not ever done so.
This is a horrible, one-sided contract that UK (the party presumably in the strongest negotiation position) signed with this coach.
This guy has already taken 10's of millions of dollars from the BBN, and he intends to milk this contract for every last penny. He has no scrupples.
UK needs to IMMEDIATELY..,
FIRE one-sided contract writer Barney
FIRE each & every lawyer that had ANY input to the loser contracts with Stoops & Calipari and any other pathetic contracts we don’t yet know about..
FIRE any & all administrators with authority over the AD who have buried their head in the sand while Barnie blew mega-millions!!!
HIRE the BEST lawyers in the USA to let Atopps know UK will sue him for total negligence, inability to coach due to off-field poor judgement (let your imagination run wild & it won’t be wrong!) & lack of any ability to keep an OC who is good. The liar is endless!
Stoops can either settle or he can go to court and let a juro of Fed-up Kentuckians not happy he gets several million for each win! He will lose in court!
NOW IS THR TIME TO TAKE ACTION !!
Georgia 45 Kentucky 10. The first quarter will be close and in the second quarter the roof comes off for Kentucky. They have a below average pass defense and a great run defense. We have a average run offense and a terrible pass offense we dont stand a chance. The only thing that would keep the game even relatively close is if Georgia has 3 or more turnovers and we dont have any and they will still beat us just maybe by 14-20
If nobody goes to the game they can't do nothing but fire him.