Mark Stoops shares the good, bad from Kentucky's loss to Ole Miss

Mark Stoops’ team is coming off a frustrating loss to Ole Miss last weekend. Kentucky shot themself in the foot more than once in Oxford during the 22-19 defeat. However, Stoops is more pleased than one would expect with what happened over the course of the Wildcat’s game against the Rebels.

Stoops spoke about the pros and cons of last Saturday’s loss during media on Monday. He said that, even with the mistakes, he was actually happy in a sense with the game.

CLICK HERE to subscribe for FREE to the On3 YouTube channel

“I really thought it was a great game. Even with the mistakes that we made,” said Stoops. “We made mistakes that I’m not proud of (where) we need to coach better and do a better job, but it was a great environment. It was a great game and I thought both teams played their tails off.”

Kentucky is hoping they won’t have to look back at this game for too long. It was one that was full of missed opportunities. Between special teams errors, mishaps from Will Levis, and a handful of other little things, it all added up to a ‘what could have been?’ result for UK. Still, Stoops was content with his team’s fight. Even after all the blunders, they still had a chance with under a minute to go.

“It stinks to come up on this end. Believe me…But we talked about the pride in our performance. At the end of the day when we put on the tape, that was off the charts. The third element, most importantly, was perfect execution and we didn’t have that,” Stoops said. “I love the way our team played. I really do. In adversity and mistakes and all that, the belief and the ability to drive it right back down there and put ourselves in position to win that game after some of those unforced errors was great.”

Kentucky still has plenty of opportunities left on their schedule to make this season a successful one. They’re now facing a stretch where they’ll host South Carolina and Mississippi State, have their bye week, and then head to Knoxville to face Tennessee. Georgia remains on the schedule as well. With that said, this win would have made a statement before they kicked off their SEC slate. They’ll have to move forward without it, though, and clean things up before the Gamecocks arrive in Lexington on Saturday.