After Kentucky opened the season with two straight losses, Mark Stoops didn’t want the Wildcats to chart a new path.
“I told them to stay the course,” he said after the Wildcats closed out the first half of a season with a 20-13 victory over Vanderbilt Saturday. “I said, every son of a gun outside of this room right here will be attacking you and me. Put your head down, do your job and go to work, because there’s nowhere to run and there’s nowhere to hide. You either man up and get better, or you cave.”
The Wildcats (3-3, 2-2 Southeastern Conference) could have easily folded after a 45-7 loss to Florida during the second week of the season but didn’t and have won three of their four, two of those — South Carolina and Vandy — by a seven points or less. Even in a 34-6 setback to top-ranked Alabama, the Wildcats displayed an ability to fight against the Crimson Tide, favored to win a second straight national championship.
As expected, nothing came easy against the struggling Commodores (2-4, 0-3). It took a goal-line stand in the closing minutes before Stoops and the Wildcats could even breath a sigh of relief. Kentucky nearly blew a 17-3 halftime lead, overcame a fumble and an interception on its first two drives of the second half and used a fourth-quarter field goal to overcome pesky Vandy.
Stoops admitted he was “smoked” in the closing seconds, but said the ending wasn’t surprising.
“It was a hard-fought, tough game, just like I said on Monday it would be. I’m very, very proud of our team,” Stoops said. “We overcame a lot of adversity and that’s what you have to do. You have to dig down and make plays to win sometimes.”
And those plays came in the form of three fourth-down conversions and taking advantage of all three scoring opportunities in the red zone to avenge last year’s 21-17 setback to the Commodores in Nashville.
“That’s really big,” said Kentucky quarterback Stephen Johnson, who is 2-1 as the team’s starting signal caller. “Being able to know you get down in the red zone and score. That’s something you have to do. You get all the way down there you have to put the ball in the end zone or through the uprights.”
Along with Johnson, Kentucky’s recent turnaround can be attributed to freshman running back Bennie Snell, who rushed 94 yards against Vandy. A big chunk of that yardage — 71 yards — came in the second half. Snell had 44 yards in the final quarter, allowing the Wildcats, who finished with 258 yards rushing, to control the clock on offense and keep the Commodores at bay.
“I was going to fight for every yard,” Snell said. “They were trying to get the ball out so, I just had to run smart. I’m disappointed in myself. I didn’t get it in the end zone. I didn’t get to score, but I’m glad we got the win.”
While the offense has been bolstered by the emergence of Snell and the running game, the defensive unit has benefited from a simplified system devised by Stoops and defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot after the Wildcats gave up 89 points in the first two games of the season.
As of late, Kentucky also is getting more pressure on the quarterback and recorded four sacks against the Commodores. Derrick Baity collected seven tackles against Vandy, while Denzel Ware added 2.5 tackles for a loss, a career high.
Like his coach, Ware never wavered when the going was tough and the outside noise was heavy two games into the season.
“I was very confident and I never gave up on my team and I never gave up on my coaches,” Ware said. “We just really wanted to prove everyone wrong because I feel like everybody had lost faith in us. We are going to keep continuing to do this for our fans because at the end of the day our fans are going to have our back no matter what.”
Stoops admitted the negative elements surrounding the program were “toxic” but credited his program for “getting on board.”
“It’s very hard to get something turned when it’s toxic and negative,” he said. “The criticism, we deserve it sometimes. I sat here and took it and will. When you deserve to be criticized, you take it like a man and move on.”
Although it hasn’t been easy staying the course, Stoops welcomes a bye week as the Wildcats prepare for the second half of the season, which has proven to be difficult times for Stoops and his staff during the past two years.
“We have some good momentum,” Stoops said. … we really needed the break right now. It’s been a tough start, but our guys have stayed the course.”
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