It didn’t take long for Mark Stoops to recover from a heartbreaking 27-24 loss to Georgia. By Monday, the Kentucky coach was ready for Tennessee.
“I am jacked up and ready to go,” Stoops said.
Like their coach, it didn’t take Kentucky’s players long to move past the disappointing setback that ended a three-game Southeastern Conference winning streak.
“We’re just going to keep growing like we do each week,” Kentucky freshman running back Benny Snell said. “We came up short this week. We’re going to fix our mistakes, throw it behind us and keep it moving.”
Stoops admitted the atmosphere in the team’s locker room following the loss to the Bulldogs was “hard” and added the next 24 hours was equally difficult but isn’t concerned about his team’s demeanor going into the final conference game of the season.
“We gave ourselves a great opportunity to win that game,” Stoops said. “Our coaches did a great job. It was the exact right recipe to win. Our players did the things necessary, we just got to keep that focus for 60 minutes and continue to put ourselves in positions like this in big games and we will make those plays.”
Kentucky (5-4, 4-3) can secure a runner-up finish and a first five-win season in league play since 1977 when the Wildcats went 6-0 against SEC foes.
“Look at where we have come and look how far this team has grown,” Stoops said. “We have played six games with one bye week in seven weeks and this team has come a long way. That doesn’t come without an edge and an attitude.”
In his team’s last outing, Stoops said the Wildcats lacked the edge needed to end a six-game losing streak to the Bulldogs but was pleased with the team’s overall effort.
“Edge is not about just an attitude,” Stoops said. “Edge is disciplined and execution in the face of adversity. And we didn’t always have the execution that we needed. I never faulted their effort. I don’t know if there is a team in the country that has worked harder than us the last seven weeks.”
Stoops said Kentucky was “fractions off” in the three-point setback but couldn’t single out which play proved to be a difference in the outcome. Kentucky had back-to-back turnovers on ensuing possessions in the second half last week that stalled a pair of drives with the Wildcats holding a slim lead in the third quarter.
“Sometimes you make a couple of plays and sometimes you don’t. There are two or three plays in a game that sometimes determine the outcome,” Stoops said. “I am not saying which ones they are because you never know which ones they are. They could be big or they could be small. If you do the little things right, the big things aren’t so big. So the big moments, the big plays that everybody thinks are the game changers, but what about all the little things we could’ve done right to not put ourselves in that position. There are many plays that change the outcome of a game, you don’t always know which ones they are.”
Like Stoops, the players are aware how close the team came to entering the conference finale in a tie for first place in the Eastern division and know what it takes to reverse the trend in their quest to become bowl eligible down the stretch.
“The pieces are there,” receiver Dorian Baker said. “We just have to learn how to finish. We were up the whole game and we just keep thinking there are ways to get better and we have to keep gashing it down and gashing and gashing and not let up. Even though we were winning, still, it’s possible that they can come back, and they did. So they did and got the win, so congratulations to them. We just have to come back and work harder.”
Kentucky has lost four straight to the Volunteers since yanking out a 10-7 victory in 2011 and hasn’t beaten Tennessee (5-4, 3-4) since 1984 when Jerry Claiborne’s squad came away with a 17-12 victory in the regular-season finale.
In order to end the 32-year drought, Kentucky junior running back Stanley “Boom” Williams said it will take the same preparation the team displayed last week leading up to the Georgia contest.
“(We’ve) just got to keep playing,” he said. (There are) three games ahead of us. A strong Tennessee (team), so we just have to come out, practice well and prepare well, and play a good game against a Tennessee team in their stadium, which we knew is going to be very hard. So we have to do what we do and be able to make plays.”
Gametracker: Kentucky at Tennessee, noon, Saturday. TV/Radio: SEC Network, 98.1 WBUL.
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