No. 12 Kentucky Hoping for Better Results in Starkville
Halloween is Sunday but Kentucky football will head into its “House of Horrors”, at least recently, one day prior.
Kentucky heads to Starkville, Mississippi to face Mississippi State on Saturday night. Davis Wade Stadium has not been kind to the Cats, especially during the Mark Stoops Era in Lexington.
The Cats have not won in Starkville under Stoops, falling in all four chances under the UK head coach. In 2013, MSU won 28-22. The 2015 game, when Dak Prescott accounted for six touchdowns, was a 42-16 Bulldog victory. The Cats also lost in Starkville in 2017 (45-7) and 2019 (28-13).
In fact, the last time Kentucky won in Starkville was 2008. In that game, Randall Cobb rushed for a touchdown and passed for another as UK won 14-13 via a blocked extra point in the fourth quarter.
Stoops knows that the challenge is not only the Bulldogs, but their home crowd.
“Going on the road, to a very tough environment, a place that we haven’t played our best football,” Stoops said. “They have done some very good things this year in all phases (of the game).”
As for why the Cats haven’t played well in Starkville, Stoops is not quite sure he has an answer.
“I can’t put my finger on any one thing,” Stoops said. “There were times when we were down there and weren’t really in a good game. There were times when we had a chance to steal one. There were games when we weren’t very good, they were a better football team than us.”
The bottom line is, Stoops knows that things must change.
“You name it. You’ve got to coach better, we’ve got to play better,” Stoops said. “No excuses, we’ve just got to go down there and play better.”
Kentucky has won seven times in 21 tries in Starkville. Overall, the series between the schools is even at 24-24 after Kentucky won in Lexington 24-2 last season.
However, this year’s Cats are a different team that the ones Stoops has taken to Starkville in the past. UK is 6-1 on the season and is ranked 12th in both the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches Polls.
UK is coming off its only bye week of the season. Stoops is hoping that the time away has helped his team in multiple ways.
“It was nice for us to have a bye week,” Stoops said. “We had a lot to focus on, a lot of areas to improve. A lot of players needed some time to medically heal up a bit. Hopefully, we’ll be in a strong position for the second part of the year.”
The Cats are coming off a bye, playing very well this season and are motivated to win in Starkville. Like a master chef, Stoops is hoping to take those ingredients and turn them into something amazing. And if he does, the Cats can put to rest the demons that have haunted them in Starkville.
