Kentucky remains 'optimistic' in tough loss: "We're going to see the sun again."

Pessimism is understandable leaving Kentucky‘s home loss to Ole Miss. Sure, the Wildcats covered and the defense looked brilliant at times against a lethal uptempo attack, but the offense was such a disaster that you wonder just how sustainable it is for Brad White‘s unit to save the day week in and week out. There is no passing game to speak of, and while the running backs are good, Lane Kiffin said it best: “They’re pretty one-dimensional.”

If he’s sniffing that out in week two, Kentucky is gonna have serious issues when SEC play really starts to ramp up.

And if fan morale is low, it’d be easy for player morale to take a similar hit, feeding off those boo birds that swarmed Kroger Field when things went from bad to worse against the Rebels. The Wildcats recognize that the reaction was warranted because it’s their job to win games, and they didn’t do that job on Saturday.

Take running back Seth McGowan, for example — one of the few bright spots of the offense, scoring twice on 15 carries with a team-high 93 yards. Bouncing around from Oklahoma to Butler Community College to New Mexico State in his five-year career dating back to 2020, he couldn’t even enjoy the success on national television, returning to the big stage after a long journey to the SEC.

“To be honest, not really because we didn’t come out with the win. I don’t think that the state of Kentucky is happy right now just because a player might have played okay,” McGowan said of finding positives in his individual performance. “I think that ultimately we’re playing this game to win. I don’t care what the outcome is other than if we won the game or if we didn’t win the game.

“As far as that goes, that really isn’t anything of significance. We just got to be ready to keep stepping it up. Our whole motto is just get better.”

Nowhere to go but up on that side of the football.

As a whole, though, the locker room is keeping its composure and finding the positives in a tough loss. Again, the defense played well, just as it did in the opener. The backs continue to produce, the offensive line is improved. If the passing game can figure itself out, why can’t they go back to the drawing board and figure all of this out?

The Wildcats aren’t throwing in the towel just yet.

“Optimistic, I think, is the best way to describe it because obviously we want to come out every Saturday and win. That’s the angle every time,” linebacker Daveren Rayner said of the team’s mindset. “We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to watch the film as we get it, so you go through it on the sideline and you’re like, ‘Shoot, this is fixable.’ This is nothing that is detrimental to ourselves as a defense, as an offense, as a program. Nothing is detrimental. So I think looking at that as a positive is really beneficial for us.”

Maybe the Wildcats’ top overall bright spot, Ty Bryant, knows that the sun is going to shine again for the entire team — not just the defense. They took the loss hard, but it wasn’t something that derailed the team just two games into the season.

They’ve worked too hard in the spring, summer and early fall to let it all go to waste this early.

That’s his advice to fans witnessing eight straight SEC losses at Kroger Field and nine straight against power-conference foes. He sees you and hears you, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t give up on the guys just yet.

“It’s tough. It’s tough for them. It’s tough for us because we’ve prepared pretty hard throughout the week and we’ve done a lot more things this year than we have any other year that I’ve been here — and this is my third year. We’ve done a lot of things differently this year, so it is hard. I just ask them to stay with us.

“I mean, we’re going to see the sun again. Don’t let this one loss define us. That’s what I’m going to tell all the guys on Monday because — I mean, everything that we want is still right ahead of us. We can still bounce back from this.”

It’s certainly a message Big Blue Nation needs to hear right now — because fans aren’t happy.