'Quiet Confidence' Helps Cats Move to 6-0
After beating No. 10 Florida last week at Kroger Field, Kentucky reaped the benefits of the big victory all week long. The Cats found themselves ranked 14th in the AFCA Coaches Poll and 16th in the Associated Press poll. There was attention from national media outlets and SEC Nation made the trip to Lexington.
With all of that going on, it would have been easy for Kentucky to overlook unranked LSU this week. After all, the Cats have not had to deal with this kind of success in nearly three years.
But the win last week did something else. It gave them a certain swagger, one the UK head coach Mark Stoops recognized.
“We just have had a good, quiet confidence about us from the preparation that we are doing,” Stoops said. “A lot of hard work preparing hard, guys are sacrificing and doing things that are necessary. Coaches are putting out great game plans and we’ve really had good, hard disciplined practices and felt like we were getting better and better and really feel like our guys are playing exceptionally hard and we are executing better.”
Instead of basking in the glow of all of the attention, Stoops got his team to get back to work and to focus on the Bayou Bengals, who came to Lexington needing a win. And that hard work paid off as the Cats cruised past LSU 42-21 on Saturday night at Kroger Field.
Handling prosperity can be tough for teams, especially those who may not have been there before. But Stoops was pleased with how his team went about its business this week.
I just felt good about it. I told you guys in the press conference right here on Monday, that I felt confident that they would just have a great week,” Stoops said. “And I really did, when I went in there Monday afternoon with the team, they were really locked in. They just were ready to get forward or look forward for this week.”
The win was signature Kentucky under Mark Stoops. The Cats played very well defensively, with the Tigers racking up the majority of their points after the issue was already decided. And Kentucky turned to the ground game, with Chris Rodriguez Jr. (147) and Kavosiey Smoke (104) each eclipsing the century mark on the ground. As a team, UK rushed for 330 yards. That number even surprised LSU head coach Ed Orgeron.
“On the 330-yard rushing, I knew they had a rushing game,” Orgeron said. “But 330 yards… we got to be able to stop them.”
For Stoops, it was just the way he and offensive coordinator Liam Coen drew up the game plan.
We had some schemes where we were putting their ends in a bind, and it was good play calls,” Stoops said. “Some of the ones (Coen) pulled were good pulls, and so we had them a touch off balance, like I said. That’s what we do. We are going to run the ball between the tackles and be physical, and we did that.”
Now, Kentucky will find itself in another high-profile situation, facing likely-No. 1 Georgia on Saturday in Athens. Stoops will hope that his team can once again handle what’s in front of it.
“They are happy, they celebrated a little bit,” Stoops said. “But they are excited about a big opportunity next week.”
That quiet confidence will continue to build as long as the Cats continue to handle what they have directly in front of them.
