Kentucky coach Mark Stoops isn’t shying away from his team’s struggles.
The Wildcats fell to 0-2 on the season following a 45-7 loss to Florida Saturday, just the first time since 1996 UK has opened the season with two straight setbacks. Stoops said the Wildcats have no choice but to “go back to work.”
“There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” the Kentucky coach said. “We’re in the arena. Time to go to work. That’s where we go. We go right back, we look at the film, we look at what we’re asking them to do, what we can do. The players need to look at themselves, the coaches need to look at things and see what we can execute. I know we can play better than that.”
Stoops took full responsibility for his team’s performance against Florida, Kentucky’s 30th straight setback to its Southeastern Conference Eastern division foe. The Wildcats have lost six straight conference games and have compiled a 1-7 record since posting back-to-back wins over Missouri and Eastern Kentucky, respectively, last season.
“I’ve never been one to just wash a game,” Stoops said. “We have to all be held accountable for what we do. I know that. It starts with me. So, we’ve got to look at all the things that we’re asking these players to do and what they can do better. But to a point, yes. To a point we can only control next week and how we prepare, how we play. Let’s go try to get one victory and go from there.”
Kentucky’s next opponent — New Mexico State — notched its first win of the season Saturday with a 32-31 triumph over instate rival New Mexico. It’s a game the Wildcats must win leading up to conference games against South Carolina, Alabama, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Missouri.
For that to happen, Kentucky must stop opponents on third down defensively, and also convert third-down opportunities on offense, which the Wildcats failed to do against the Gators. Florida was 14-20 on third-down chances, while Kentucky managed just nine first downs and gave up five sacks.
“We’ve got to possess the football, we’ve got to get first downs, we’ve got to move the chains and then we’ve got to get off the field on third downs defensively,” Stoops said. “We’re not playing very good defense at all. We’ve got to get a lot better. We’ve got to get stronger up front and back end we thought we were going to have some guys that could cover some people but we’re not playing very good there today as well.”
Stoops wasn’t sure of the performance was a carryover from his team’s season-opening loss to Southern Miss, but credited the Gators for disrupting his team’s progression.
“I didn’t see it (carryover) all week,” he said. “I really didn’t. I think you credit them. They out-coached us and outplayed us. They really played well.”
Neal Brown just misses milestone victory
Former Kentucky offensive coordinator and Troy coach Neal Brown just missed notching the biggest win of his coaching career Saturday in the Trojans’ 30-24 loss at No. 2 Clemson Saturday.
Brown wasn’t happy with the loss, but was satisfied with his team’s showing against the Tigers.
“Our players competed and fought all the way to the very end,” Brown said. “We played the No. 2 team in the country and gave them everything they wanted. We didn’t play our best in any phase, offensively, defensively or special teams. We did not play our best.”
Former UK coordinators meet in C-USA showdown
Two former Kentucky offensive coordinators — Brown and Shannon Dawson — will square off against each other when Southern Mississippi plays host to Troy Saturday in Hattiesburg.
In his second game calling the offensive shots for the Eagles, Southern Miss finished with 615 yards of total offense in a 56-0 rout of Savannah State Saturday in the team’s home opener.
Under Dawson, Southern Miss has amassed 1,169 yards in the team’s first two games of the season.
Towles leads Boston College to first win
Former Kentucky quarterback Patrick Towles completed 12-of-22 passes for 191 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the Eagles’ 26-7 win over UMass Saturday. Towles also finished with a team-high 66 yards rushing.
Towles threw back-to-back touchdowns in the second quarter to break the game open.
“I thought Patrick did a great job leading our team,” Boston College coach Steve Addazio said.
Keith Taylor is a senior sports writer for KyForward, where he primarily covers University of Kentucky sports. Reach him at keith.taylor@kyforward.com or @keithtaylor21 on Twitter