Win-or-go-home games are a rarity in college football.With the way the season is structured, most teams know by the final week of the regular season whether a bowl game is in their future.Kentucky’s December, however, is still very much up in the air.The Wildcats now face a simple choice: win a game on the road against their archrival or watch their season end one victory shy of bowl eligibility.Mark Stoops doesn’t dispute that it’s a source of motivation, though he adds a caveat.”I think they all know what we’re playing for,” Stoops said. “They know that. There’s no point in hiding from it. But it’s not the only message, right?” The circumstances of UK’s regular-season finale are different than any of the first 11 games of 2014, but Stoops isn’t about to forsake the focus that he’s had all year for a trip to Louisville at noon on Saturday.”The message is to do what we constantly preach, and that is put the time and effort and focus into our preparation,” Stoops said. “It’s not just turning it on on game day. We’ve got to have a great week.”The hope is that UK laid the groundwork for that great week by capitalizing on a much-needed open date. The Cats’ bye week began with days off for players on Sunday and Monday, followed by a return to practice on Tuesday.”It was good just to get out, after a couple days’ rest, get out and do some good, competitive work,” Stoops said. “Get back to some fundamentals. Do some things that we do through camp where we go good against good, do some one-on-ones.”In the midst of a grueling stretch of eight games in eight weeks – seven coming against league opponents – UK had little choice but to go straight from one game plan to the next. The bye week afforded the Cats the opportunity to think about football, not any specific game.”You get so enamored with the Xs and Os and assignments that you drift from some of the basics,” Stoops said. “We obviously try not to. We constantly have individual in certain things, but it was good to spend more time with that last week.”Once the week of practice was over on Friday, the Cats were given the weekend off. Many players took the opportunity to spend some time at home considering they’ll be practicing in Lexington over Thanksgiving this week, while Stoops stayed in town and watched football on Saturday.”I couldn’t get away from it too far,” Stoops said. “I didn’t watch as much as I normally do though, actually. I got out of the house. Took my boys out of the house for a while.”Stoops made sure to be in front of a television for most of Louisville’s 31-28 win at Notre Dame on Saturday. He was impressed.”Their coach (Bobby Petrino) is doing a great job,” Stoops said. “They haven’t missed a beat to what they’ve been doing. They win a bunch of football games, they play extremely hard. They’re very well coached, and that’s an impressive win. They’re playing good football.”Stoops wants UK-U of L to go nationalStoops came to Kentucky to build a program. In doing so he hopes to turn UK-U of L into a football rivalry known nationally.”Well, we’re trying to create it to be a bigger and better rivalry,” Stoops said. “I think that comes from us having to play better football and winning more games and putting ourselves in a position where we can get this game on a more national scale.”In the meantime, it’s a game both sides still want to win badly.”It’s important to the people in this state,” Stoops said. “It’s important to our fans and our players and coaches. So, you know, I think it’s just like most of these games. It’s important to a lot of people, and you feel that, and you want to go play well.”Baker out for season with knee injuryWide receiver Dorian Baker sustained a non-contact injury to his knee in practice last week. He will undergo surgery and will miss the Louisville, as well as a bowl game should UK reach one. The true freshman has appeared in 10 of UK’s 11 games this season, making three starts and catching 19 passes for 199 yards and a touchdown.Also likely to be sidelined for UK’s regular-season finale is tackle Kyle Meadows, who is suffering from an ankle injury. Patrick Towles also has an injured ankle, but he played through it against Tennessee and Stoops hopes to have him at full strength for practice on Monday afternoon.