Why two days after Tennessee loss Mark Stoops was feeling ‘surprisingly freaking jacked up’
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Preview: Kentucky at Missouri
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday’s Kentucky-Missouri football game scheduled for noon EDT at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
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It was a rough weekend for Mark Stoops.
He struggled to sleep Saturday night after his team’s 44-6 blowout loss at Tennessee. By the end of a long day in the office Sunday breaking down how many things went wrong in Knoxville, he needed the pick-me-up provided when UK President Eli Capilouto made an impromptu visit to the football training center to deliver a message of support.
But by his weekly Monday news conference, Stoops had found a new emotion.
“I feel surprisingly freaking jacked up and great,” Stoops said. “Why? Because you have to be. You have to be. Yeah, I felt like crap all night Saturday night and all day Sunday, but today I’m freaking jacked up, ready to go.”
Stoops did not sugarcoat the level of failure at Tennessee in more than 30 minutes talking with reporters, but he went out of his way to make sure one message was clear.
Just because fans and reporters may have already declared the season a disappointment since preseason talk of challenging in the SEC East was proven overly optimistic does not mean anyone in Kentucky’s locker room is ready to throw in the towel.
“We’re not going to be fazed,” Stoops said. “We’ve got to get right back at it this weekend and I understand that. Fans are having their coffee and reading your articles. I don’t read them, (but) I’m sure there is criticism. I don’t take offense to that. That’s your job.
“It’s not good enough. What more can I (say)? I’ve been hit on the chin many times, believe me. I accept it and I’ll come right back.”
Kentucky was ranked 24th in the USA Today Coaches Poll after the loss, it dropped out of the Associated Press top 25 for the first time this season.
At 5-3 overall and 2-3 in SEC play, Kentucky can still reach eight wins and a .500 record in SEC play by winning the three games it is likely to be favored in over the final month.
First, Kentucky must right the ship in time for a challenging 11 a.m. local kickoff at Missouri. The Tigers are coming off an upset win at South Carolina and bring a defense ranked 19th nationally in yards allowed per game.
Considering the recent struggles of Kentucky’s offense, which failed to score 20 points in three of the last four games, a feel-good performance to bounce back from the Tennessee embarrassment is far from certain. Making wholesale changes to the offense with just four games left in a season would be impractical, but some minor tweaks might be coming.
When a reporter asked if the offense, which coordinator Rich Scangarello brought from the NFL, needed to be simplified for college players, Stoops acknowledged that was a consideration.
“It’s a fair criticism and things we have to look at and why and where we’re spending our time,” Stoops said. “All of those things we have to look at, put our players in a position to be more successful. That’s on us as well.”
None of Kentucky’s five wins have come against a team currently ranked in the top 25. The blowout loss at Tennessee makes it clear Kentucky has yet to earn a space in the top tier of SEC teams, but there is still a chance to prove capable of challenging what Stoops described as the “elite” teams in the league in a home matchup with No. 1 Georgia on Nov. 19.
The version of Kentucky on display in Knoxville was certainly not good enough to have hope in that game.
No wonder Stoops is focused on the daily improvement needed first before Missouri. If his team keeps that focus, there is still time to rewrite the narrative of the season.
“You just keep on grinding, keep on chopping that tree,” Stoops said. “...People don’t just magically at the end of the year say, ‘Wow that was just a great (season).’ You string together days. You have good days all the time, and eventually you’re going to have good weeks and you look at the end of it and say, ‘Yeah, that was a good year.’
“For all of us, including (the elite teams) obviously, it’s day to day. Fans and people can look at it differently because you have that ability to do that. For the rest of us, for them, it’s the next challenge.”
Saturday
Kentucky at Missouri
When: Noon
TV: SEC Network
Records: Kentucky 5-3 (2-3 SEC), Missouri 4-4 (2-3)
This story was originally published November 1, 2022 at 7:57 AM.
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