What Kentucky football’s win over Miami (Ohio) means for Florida game, Mark Stoops’ legacy
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Game day: Kentucky 37, Miami (Ohio) 13
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Miami (Ohio) football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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Kentucky football opened the 2022 season with a 37-13 win over Miami (Ohio) on Saturday. With the opener out of the way, the No. 20 Wildcats can turn their full focus to Southeastern Conference play in advance of a trip to Florida next week.
Here is a closer look at what the season-opening win means beyond the scoreboard.
MARK STOOPS ADDS TO HIS LEGACY
With the victory, Kentucky’s head coach tied Paul “Bear” Bryant for most wins in program history (60). Stoops is the first UK coach to last 10 seasons with the program.
“I do not spend any time thinking about that,” Stoops said this week when asked about being compared to Bryant. “I would never want to disrespect the name, Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, and I think everybody that understands football puts that name at the very top. Along, with maybe one other guy right now.
“So that means something, but it is totally different. I would rather them be comparing me to how many national championships I won like him.”
While Stoops tied the win record Saturday, he is unlikely to catch Bryant in winning percentage. Bryant won 71% of his Kentucky games. Stoops has now won 53.1%.
Still, the accomplishment is all the more impressive when one considers Stoops’ UK record sat at 12-26 two games into his fourth season as coach.
Since then, Stoops is 48-27 with two 10-win seasons, a plateau Kentucky had not reached since 1977.
“I would never put my name in the same regard as (Bryant),” Stoops said. “I am grateful for what we have done here, and appreciative, and proud, but certainly not the same thing. The accomplishments he made to our sport at multiple schools — that is not me. I am not putting my name in the same category as him. I have ultimate respect for the job that he did.”
ALL EYES ON SEC EAST RACE
Saturday’s opener represented a chance for a much-needed warm-up game for Kentucky, but the Wildcats can ill afford to rest on their laurels after the victory.
The level of competition jumps next week with a pivotal game at Florida. If Kentucky is serious about its goal of challenging Georgia for the SEC East title, it needs to make an early statement in the SEC opener.
Now, the question is how much of new offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello’s scheme was held back in the opener.
“In all honesty, one of our great advantages here is nobody knows really what we’re going to look like first game — first two games, quite honestly,” Scangarello said during UK’s preseason camp. “Are we the 49ers? Are we my offense? What are we? What do we have here? … After we put a few games on tape and you guys see who the suspects are I’m sure we’ll have a different conversation. But until then, let’s let it be an adventure for everyone.”
Stoops respects Kentucky’s annual Mid-American Conference opponents too much to go into a game planning to hold things back, but surely Kentucky coaches at least considered the possibility of keeping Florida guessing as much as possible.
One area where that wasn’t possible was the debut of the numerous freshmen the Wildcats will count on early in the season. Those players needed the experience of being counted on in a college game before making the trip to Florida.
Wide receivers Barion Brown and Dane Key, defensive tackle Deone Walker, nickel back Alex Afari and outside linebacker Keaten Wade all played early snaps for the Wildcats against Miami.
“You want to see what they can do,” Stoops said of the freshmen Thursday. “Kind of looking forward to see the way they play. We feel pretty good about it, but when the lights come on some people really elevate and sometimes people are affected. … I’m sure they’re going to make mistakes just like most people do, but some very talented guys and they need some reps under their belt.”
OPENING MOMENTUM
Kentucky has now won its season opener in five of six seasons. The lone loss in that stretch was at Auburn in 2020 when the SEC went to a conference-only schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like Saturday, the Wildcats’ performances in the season-opening games against Group of Five conference teams have not always been dominant though. Last season, Kentucky beat a Louisiana-Monroe team coming off a winless season 45-10 in the opener, but had beaten its first FBS opponent by more than 15 points just once previously in the Stoops era.
Even the 2018 team that went on to win 10 games struggled at times in its opener, trailing 20-14 to Central Michigan late in the first half before holding on for a 35-20 win. Despite that middling performance, the 2018 Wildcats went to Florida a week later and ended Kentucky’s 31-game losing streak in the series.
This story was originally published September 3, 2022 at 10:23 PM.
