Stoops 'Proud' of Cats on Saturday Against Georgia

Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops would be the first to tell you that there are no moral victories, only actual victories. So, despite the fact that UK went toe-to-toe with top-ranked Georgia before dropping a 13-12 heartbreaker, Stoops knows it’s still a loss.

However, there will be a lot that the UK head coach will like after Saturday’s contest. Namely, after getting beaten badly by South Carolina at Kroger Field last weekend, Stoops challenged his team to show more fight, to execute the game plan and to play a cleaner game. Kentucky was able to accomplish all of that, while maintaining the lead into the fourth quarter against a national championship contender.

“I’m not saying I’m pleased with a moral victory. We’re 10 years past that,” Stoops said following Satruday’s game. “But I do care about the way we play. I care about our preparation, I care about the way we represent the fan base, the way we represent this university, the way we play. And we played hard. I’m very proud of our coaches, very proud of our players because, let’s be honest, that was a hard week. And they responded and played exceptionally hard.”

After last week, it could have been easy for Kentucky’s players to not work hard or to wallow in their sub-par performance against the Gamecocks. However, Stoops saw his team and coaching staff do exactly what they needed to do.

“Really proud of our players, the way they fought and competed,” Stoops said. “I thought our coaches did a really good job this week. As you could imagine, a very challenging week coming off the way we performed seven days ago in this stadium. Proud of our players, how hard they played and picking themselves up off the mat after a performance a week ago that none of us were very pleased with. And had to rebound and play the number one-ranked team in the country. And we came out and played them toe-to-toe.”

Kentucky got a huge defensive effort in Saturday’s game. The Cats held the Bulldogs to just 262 yards of total offense and had three tackles for loss. Ty Bryant, Zion Childress and D’Eryk Jackson each had six tackles for the Cats. Bryant and Childress each had a tackle for loss for the Cats. Stoops was proud of how hard his team competed again this week.

“I think our team was embarrassed by the way we played (last week),” Stoops said. “I thought we played hard but we didn’t play very good. To play and beat this team, you’re going to have to make plays and I thought we did that. We had a good recipe to try to get this victory, just fell a little short.”

Now, the Cats must return to an old refrain after coming up just short of an upset that would have shocked the nation.

“We now go back to work and try to find the plays necessary to finish it off,” Stoops said.

A week after an unexpected poor performance against South Carolina, there was plenty for Kentucky to be proud of on Saturday night against Georgia.