Kentucky-Mississippi State Postgame Quotes
MSU 45, Kentucky 7
Davis Wade Stadium
Starkville, Mississippi
October 21, 2017
Kentucky Head Coach Mark Stoops
Opening Statement “Not a very good effort. There isn’t a whole lot, I will be very quick in my opening statement. Definitely not acceptable. We didn’t play winning football. I didn’t coach well enough, and they took care of business from the beginning of the game to the end. They were the more physical team. Generally when you’re that much more physical than your opponent, you win the game. That was the case tonight. I give them credit, they really played well. They are a very wellcoached football team. They are very physical and they have an outstanding quarterback. It was a great effort by them. Not good enough by us. We have to get back to work.”
On his message to the team… “Not acceptable. Not okay. They flat out beat us. They out coached us. You accept it. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide in this business. There is nowhere for them to run and hide. They whooped us, that is the way it is. You have to accept it. We all have to look in the mirror and look at ourselves. We have to look at every aspect of our situation in the mirror and see where we can get better. We have to give Mississippi State credit for beating our tails. That is the way it is. We have to go back to work on Monday and they better be ready to strap it on and go to work.”
On typical success coming off a bye week… “It is not always the case. For us coming off a bye week we didn’t play to our standards, sometimes that happens. It isn’t acceptable. You know you are going into a tough environment. I really feel like the game got away from us with three minutes left in the half. We battle back and fight to get to 10-7. We knew we were hanging on and it was time to get out of that half. It was imperative that we got a first down coming out with under three. We got it to second and short and then I believe third and short. We went for a shot. We had a play we worked that was super aggressive. We thought we would give it a shot and go for the home run. The game flipped right there. They are a physical bunch. That many more plays, and it was very reminiscent of the last time we were here when the game got away from us at the end of the first half. I was very conscious of it. I tried very hard to not let that happen, but it did. The game got away from us very quickly. More snaps, more effort, and more opportunity for them to drive down and score. The game got away from us right there.”
On halftime adjustments … “Well Mississippi State got ahead, they got aggressive and put a lot of pressure on us. We weren’t winning some one-on-ones. They did a nice job of mixing up their pressures and got after us. We knew that going in that they don’t give up a lot of first downs. They lead the country in giving up the fewest amount of first downs.”
Kentucky Player Quotes
QB – Stephen Johnson – Sr. On today’s performance… “I did not see this coming at all. We did not execute today, and we played poorly on all sides of the ball. “
On coming up one to two yards short… “It is quite frustrating because we practiced this all week. At practice it would work out, but come game time, I was a little short on my throws. That is something I have to go back and work on.”
On how to bounce back from this game… “We have to come back to work on Monday. We cannot take a step back and be like the old Kentucky, we have to be like the new Kentucky and continue fighting through games. There is no time to sulk.”
On what Mississippi State was doing well on defense… “They disguised their coverages very well. A lot of times we ran into a play where we thought they were going to be doing something else. They were also very physical, more physical than we were being the entire game.”
LB – Josh Allen – Jr. On how frustrating a loss like this is… “You could clearly tell after the game that we were hurt. We did not put out all of our effort, and we did not execute. Now we prepare for next week. This cannot be the game that causes us to lose the entire season. This is only one game.”
On how to make sure this one loss does not turn into two… “We just have to forget about it in a sense to learn from our mistakes. When Monday comes, it is time for Tennessee; there is no more Mississippi State. We lost, but we have to move on to the next game.”
On how difficult it was to take down Nick Fitzgerald… “He is the first quarterback that we have faced that is of his size. We have to tackle and we missed several of those tackles. I personally missed the opportunity for a sack. He is a good player and I commend him for that. “
