For Mark Stoops, 2 coaching decisions cost Kentucky in loss to Texas
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mark Stoops' fourth-down aggressiveness failed twice and cost Kentucky the game.
- Kentucky outgained Texas 395-179 and pressured Arch Manning but lost in overtime.
- Two long punt returns and failed fourth-down runs produced the decisive 10 points.
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Gameday: No. 21 Texas 16, Kentucky 13 (OT)
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Texas football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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It is an article of faith among an increasingly frustrated Kentucky fan base that Mark Stoops’ primary failure in game management is excessive conservatism.
In actuality, the UK coach’s chief weakness is often the opposite: Overaggression.
On a night when Stoops and the Wildcats had a potential season-flipping upset of No. 21 Texas within grasp, the UK coach threw caution to the wind in two critical fourth down situations — and the gambles failed for Kentucky both times.
In a game where the UK offense outgained Arch Manning and the Texas attack 395-179 and the Kentucky defense held the Longhorns to eight first downs, the Wildcats nevertheless took another SEC home loss, falling 16-13 in overtime Saturday night before a Kroger Field crowd of 60,937.
“We’ve improved each and every week, you know, through this SEC schedule,” Stoops said afterward. “Unfortunately, (we) came up short, and that hurts.”
Kentucky (2-4, 0-4 SEC) took its 10th SEC loss in a row, largely, because it surrendered two long punt returns to Ryan Niblett that led to 10 Texas points and because two Stoops gambles to go for it on fourth-and-1 rather than kick short field goals both came up snake eyes for UK.
With the game knotted 13-13 at the end of regulation, Texas won the toss and put Kentucky on offense first. A Cutter Boley outside screen to Kendrick Law on UK’s first play of OT went for 22 yards to the Texas 3-yard line.
Yet needing 3 yards to score the go-ahead touchdown, Kentucky ran four plays and gained only two.
With the ball 1 yard out of the end zone on both third and fourth down, Kentucky slammed running back Dante Dowdell into the middle of the Texas defensive line twice. Both times, the transfer from Nebraska tried to dive over the Texas defense.
Neither time did that work.
So with UK not scoring, all Texas needed on its OT possession was a field goal to win the game.
That became huge when the Longhorns were called for holding on their first offensive play of the overtime, moving the ball back to the 35-yard line. The Longhorns never got inside the 27-yard line vs the UK defense in the remainder of the OT. But that was well within range of place-kicker Mason Shipley, who won the game with a 45-yard field goal.
Even with knowledge of how the overtime played out, Stoops said he had no regrets over not kicking an OT field goal.
“There’s always decision(s) that I can definitely second guess myself on. But not that one,” Stoops said. “I wanted to go to play to win. We played well the entire game and had a great opportunity, six inches, you know, whatever, half yard to win. Put yourself in a position to win the game, so we came up short, and that hurts.”
Since Kentucky had tried the middle of the Texas defense on third down from the 1, perhaps the Wildcats should have tried something different on fourth down?
“When you’re a yard, yard and a half away, you got to make those decisions of what you’re going to live with,” said Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan. “We felt we were going to rely on, on being downhill with the backs and our line. And that was a decision made.”
Kentucky’s first drive of the game ended in the same way UK’s final offensive drive did. The Wildcats had the ball third-and-1 at the Texas 16. A Cutter Boley QB sneak and a Dowdell plunge up the middle on third and fourth down, respectively, yielded no gain.
In a contest that turned out to be a taut defensive struggle, Kentucky passing on what would have been a short field goal proved consequential.
From the start of the Stoops coaching era in 2013 until now, most of the game-management calls that have blown up on Kentucky have come from assuming too much risk. Just to name three, failed fourth down attempts hurt UK in 2015 at Vanderbilt, in 2019 against Louisville and last season against South Carolina.
(In fairness, a successful Stoops fourth-down gamble last season at Mississippi led to an upset of the then-No. 6 Rebels. So they haven’t all failed).
For a coach so many think is more conservative than a Brooks Brothers suit, Stoops has had a long history of ill-fated gambles.
That it happened again Saturday night against Texas denied Kentucky a shot at a victory Stoops really needed.
Kentucky had much good happen against Texas. Boley (31-of-39 passing for 258 yards with an interception; a 16-yard touchdown run), UK’s redshirt freshman quarterback, very much outplayed ballyhooed Texas QB Manning (12-of-27 passing for 132 yards with no TDs or picks).
After substandard showings in Kentucky’s first three SEC games, the Wildcats’ defense held Texas to 179 yards of total offense, sacked Manning three times and “hurried” him on seven occasions.
In spite of all the negativity swirling around a UK program that has now lost 18 of its past 21 games vs. power-conference opposition, the Cats players put up a big fight Saturday night.
Yet with a narrative-altering victory within grasp, Mark Stoops’ fourth-down gambles again went south on the Cats.
This story was originally published October 19, 2025 at 1:41 AM.
