Stanley “Boom” Williams rushed for 100 yards and a touchdown in UK’s 63-31 loss to Georgia on Saturday. (Chet White, UK Athletics)
For Mark Stoops, every game, including losses, provides teachable moments.His custom is to watch video with his staff on Sunday and reconvene with his team on Monday to begin the learning process, no matter what the film shows.He’s considering making an exception after Kentucky’s defeat on Saturday.”I’m not much on throwing things out, but I may have to throw this one out,” Stoops said.It was a 63-31 loss at the hands of Georgia that gave Stoops pause. The Wildcats (5-5, 2-5 Southeastern Conference) didn’t force a Bulldog punt all afternoon in allowing 559 yards, only preventing Georgia (7-2, 5-2 SEC) from scoring thanks to a fumbled kickoff and the ends of both halves.”I don’t want to keep on going on and on, but when I say I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed,” Stoops said, restating for the final time a sentiment that came up often in his postgame press conference. “We didn’t play good, and I’ll sit here and accept that, and it is what it is.”It all started with the opening kickoff, taken 90 yards for the first of two return touchdowns by Georgia’s Isaiah McKenzie. “That’s just kind of how the day went,” Stoops said. “It’s hard to have an explanation for that. It started with a terrible kick and some guys not doing their job. You play a very good football team and they make you pay like that, it kind of takes the air out of the stadium right from the start.”More air left the stadium as Georgia scored twice more before the end of the first quarter to take a 21-0 lead. The Cats would battle back by halftime, scoring 24 points on their next four drives to make it 35-24 at the break, but the outcome was all but sealed when Patrick Towles’ pass tipped off Ryan Timmons’ hand for a Corey Moore interception.”I really felt like we had a chance coming out of the half if we could have–what, were we down 10, 11 or something like that – if we could have done something positive, put some points on the board,” offensive coordinator Neal Brown said. “I don’t know at the end of the day if we were good enough to win it, but it wouldn’t have turned out like this.”In spite of some offensive strides (UK had 214 rushing yards, including 100 by true freshman Stanley “Boom” Williams), 22 Wildcats had their Senior Day spoiled and the 60,152 fans in attendance saw a loss in the final game played in Commonwealth Stadium before the completion of a $120 million renovation. Included in that group is star defensive end/linebacker Bud Dupree.”It was embarrassing,” Dupree said. “We gotta watch film. We really don’t know what happened. Just not executing calls and not playing with a lot of effort. Just different things that we gotta fix. But you can’t point any fingers. We just gotta go on to the next game.”Even though he called Saturday’s game “not acceptable,” Stoops agrees that moving on is UK’s only reasonable course of action.”We’ll look at all the things we could do better,” Stoops said. “But the fact of the matter is we’re a .500 football team with two big games left, starting with Tennessee, and we’ll see.”The other game, of course, is a season finale at Louisville, meaning UK will play its final two games on the road against its two biggest rivals. In doing so, the Cats have a clear motivation.”Just try to get win No. 6,” Dupree said. “We got two more games to win No. 6, to go to a bowl game. We’re still going to end up having a good season, be over .500 and it’s just up to us if we want it or not.”UK might be in the midst of a four-game losing streak against four bowl-bound SEC teams, but the Cats haven’t backed off in their preparation to this point. Stoops doesn’t expect that to change.”Our guys, they’ve had a good attitude in practice,” Stoops said. “They’ve worked. They’ve given me no indication throughout the week. This team was better than us and played much better than us and took it to us. They had a lot to do with it. I think we’ll see. This will be a test of our character here this week. We’ll see how we respond and dig down and how we come back and play.”Fortunately, the Cats have proven performance to call on as they look to bounce back. UK has won a pair of conference games against South Carolina and Vanderbilt and played well in two more against Mississippi State and Florida.”We know what it takes to win,” Towles said. “We’ve done it. We just have to do it more consistently. I have all the faith in the world in these seniors, these guys.”One of those seniors, defensive tackle Mike Douglas, was asked whether the veterans will call any players-only meetings or do anything special to rally their younger teammates. The time for that, he said, has passed. It’s time, simply put, to do.”There comes a point in time where there are no more words that can be said it’s all about action, you either put up or shut up,” Douglas said. “… Now we are at a point where we need to come out and be focused and come out and know the mission at hand. Thank God that we still have two games to prove that we are better than we have shown.”