Cats Have Opportunity in Facing Adversity
Mark Stoops didn’t want to take the podium for his weekly press conference with a 45-7 loss to talk about. He’d have much preferred the score from Kentucky’s trip to Mississippi State was reversed.
Nonetheless, there he was. He figured he might as well find a positive in it all.
“Adversity kind of reveals a man to himself,” Stoops said. “So we’ll see how we respond.”
Stoops isn’t going to be passive in that process though. In fact, his entire day on Sunday and morning on Monday were consumed with figuring out exactly how he will approach his role.
“There’s always a team effort in getting things back,” Stoops said. “I’ve certainly spent a lot of time in the last day and a half getting prepared for that.”
Stoops’ role begins with addressing the Wildcats at their first team meeting of the week on Monday. He spent a little more time crafting that message this week.
“I admit probably more than usual today,” Stoops said. “I could very easily go with my gut five minutes before a meeting. I don’t know. I don’t want to say – That’s just been my philosophy through all the years. There’s always some calculated messages in there as well. Definitely spent a little bit more time.”
The good news is Stoops has plenty of experience motivating this group. Many of his players are holdovers from last year’s team, which rebounded from a loss to Florida by an identical 45-7 score to finish the regular season 7-3 and reach the program’s first bowl since 2010. UK is in far better shape than it was back then.
“Every team is different,” Stoops said. “We certainly handled adversity very well as a football team last year — much worse adversity than this. And they responded the right way. Hopefully we’ll have the same character within this group. I have no reason to believe that we won’t, but I believe it will.”
Stoops has plenty in mind when he thinks about things that need to improve. He and his staff will be addressing them Monday and even more so later in the week in the meat of practice. There’s one thing that sticks out immediately.
“As I mentioned, without getting too specific, we all accept the responsibility,” Stoops said. “We’re going to move on after today. We’ll have a team meeting and watch the film. We need to make competitive plays. We’re not making enough competitive plays right now.”
The goal is to change that and change it quick. This week and Saturday’s matchup with Tennessee at Kroger Field are opportunities to do exactly that.
“I believe in this football team and I believe in this staff and we’ll get back to work,” Stoops said. “It’s 5-2. It’s not a good showing. It’s not acceptable and time to put it behind us after this press conference, and I’ve got to go and meet with the team, and we’ll put it behind us. Can’t wait, really, to be honest with you to get in that meeting and get on to our preparation with Tennessee.”
