Stoops Wants Cats to Learn from Saturday Setback
Kentucky is coming off a 35-13 loss at South Carolina on Saturday. While no one ever wants to lose, UK head coach Mark Stoops hopes that a game like that can turn into a learning opportunity for his team.
“With every opportunity, you have to learn from that,” Stoops said. “Whether it’s success or failure, or anywhere in between, you just have to get better and use that experience.”
The Cats are now 2-2 on the season and 0-2 in Southeastern Conference play. However, Stoops’ confidence in his team has not wavered.
“I really like this football team and the way they work and their attitude,” Stoops said. “I don’t expect any of that to change. We just need to be better and we need to execute in critical moments and just become a better football team.”
On Monday, Stoops addressed one part of Saturday’s loss that was key – turnovers. UK’s turnovers set South Carolina up for success, including two defensive touchdowns, while the Cats were unable to force and Gamecocks’ turnovers.
“I think we all know that we can’t overcome turnovers. We just can’t do it,” Stoops said. “There’s not many people who can, especially in our league. The way we’re built right now, we just can’t overcome turnovers like that. We always talk about the takeaways and you look at us going into that game, we had a decent amount of interceptions, fumbles, balls on the ground that we weren’t able to get. That’s a balance sometimes. We’ve been doing a decent job on that. Didn’t get any on Saturday, so credit them.”
In addition to correcting the turnovers from Saturday, Stoops and the UK offense continue to look for explosive plays on offense. The Cats have been unable to produce those plays in large numbers, which makes it hard to bounce back from large deficits.
“It’s a fair point because we are methodical right now and not overly explosive,” Stoops said. “Therefore, we have to play the game a certain way. We’ve just got to continue to get better, whether it be coming up just a fraction short in protection or a quarterback maybe missing a throw or a receiver not coming up with a dynamic catch, you put it all together and it’s not a great recipe.”
Things don’t get any easier this week as the Cats hit the road again, facing No. 12 Georgia in Athens. Stoops knows that his team will need to be on top of its game this weekend.
“Another great challenge this week, going on the road playing a great Georgia team,” Stoops said. “Always a very big challenge. Georgia is coming off a loss. I’m sure they’ll be in a bad mood, like our players are.”
Stoops and the Cats hope to build on the lessons learned at South Carolina on Saturday as they prepare for Georgia this week.
