KSR Today: Where does Kentucky go from here?

You know when a relationship is trending in the wrong direction and a breakup feels inevitable, no matter how much love you have for the other person or the beautiful memories you share? It’s not that you want it to end necessarily, but you can’t escape the feeling that it needs to end and both sides would be better off because of it. That’s Kentucky football under Mark Stoops, and the Wildcats’ 16-13 overtime loss to No. 21 Texas at Kroger Field drove that point home maybe harder than ever.

Last night sucked, man. I told myself that only two results were meaningful moving forward, one being UK wins — obviously the preference every Saturday — and the other being embarrassing blowout losses. Living in Moral Victory U territory does no one any good when we’re talking about the future of the program and who needs to be leading it, that uncomfortable gray area in a black and white business. You can talk about how tough you played elite teams in the SEC and came up just short, but you’re proud of the effort until you’re blue in the face.

At the end of the day, though, Kentucky fans have not seen a home win against a Power 4 program since September 2023, ten straight losses at Kroger Field against teams with a pulse and nine straight SEC losses overall. Stoops is 3-13 against the spread coming off bye weeks with no outright league wins since November 2020 — the Wildcats are somehow worse with extra time to go back to work.

That’s why Saturday night’s result is so tough to swallow. Kentucky actually dominated Texas, who entered the year ranked No. 1 in the country with one of the best defenses in college football. The Wildcats doubled up the Longhorns offensively (395 yards vs. 179) and tripled their first downs (26 vs. 8) while controlling the clock almost twice as long (39:23 vs. 20:37), Cutter Boley thoroughly outplaying Arch Manning in the battle of young quarterbacks. Brad White’s defense played out of its mind, his players making plays on the football with a level of physicality to suggest they were the elite group deserving of national attention. On paper, Kentucky should have won this game in regulation — and maybe by a couple of scores.

In fact, the Wildcats fumbled the ball four times with two muffed punts and fell on every loose ball. How often do we say the ball bounced Kentucky’s way? Essentially never, but that wasn’t the case against Texas. The football gods were begging to hand that one to Stoops on a golden platter and it still wasn’t enough. They even gifted UK with overtime — remember UT’s DeAndre Moore Jr. inexplicably running out of bounds to stop the clock with 1:05 to go, setting up one final drive for Boley and the Cats? Then they spotted us a 1st and Goal from the three-yard line to open the extra period. Four straight rushes for a total of two yards, three of those carries going to the best short-yardage back in the sport a year ago for no gain, stuffed on two Superman dives at the goal line.

Again, somehow, it just wasn’t meant to be, Texas winning the game on two stupid punt returns.

For the first time, there was defeat in Stoops’ voice at the podium after the heartbreaking loss, struggling to process how a game with so much going your way and players giving it everything they’ve got can lead to more disappointment and fans going home sad again. Their best wasn’t good enough, and he knew it.

“When you’re losing games, it’s real easy to cave. It’s real easy to submit and give in. None of those guys did that,” Stoops said afterward. “They worked their tail off. It was a great investment by them, and it hurts. I feel for them. I want to thank the fans who have supported us during some tough times. I get it, I really acknowledge that, but it’s about the University of Kentucky. It’s about these players. I understand the position I put people in to make a decision, and that’s on me. 

“But I greatly appreciate the support for our team and our players. They deserve an environment like that and deserve to win. I want to do that for them.”

And maybe the most important quote from his press conference.

“We’re getting better. You can look at the bottom line, and we all do,” Stoops said. “It’s a bottom-line business and I understand that as much as anybody. I’ve been around a long time.”

So, where do you go from here? Texas was considered one of the more winnable games left on the schedule considering the team’s recent struggles. Tennessee comes to town next week coming off a 17-point loss to Alabama with its College Football Playoff hopes hanging on by a thread — a must-win for the Volunteers. That’s not a great spot to be in. The Cats then travel to the Plains to take on Auburn, currently winless in the SEC with four straight top-20 losses, albeit all within ten points. The Tigers are desperate, too, with Hugh Freeze currently coaching for his job. Is Florida the spot for BBN’s first SEC win at Kroger Field in a couple of years? There is a very real chance Billy Napier will be fired by then.

Tennessee Tech should be a win, but the Golden Eagles are 7-0 and first in the OVC. They aren’t pushovers. Vanderbilt’s resume speaks for itself at 6-1 coming off a top-10 win and will be ranked inside the top 15 this afternoon. And then Louisville is Louisville — we all know what that game means for both fanbases.

There are opportunities, but Texas was an opportunity, one Kentucky couldn’t capitalize on. Will the ones ahead be any different? And more importantly, will Big Blue Nation still be there to see the light at the end of the tunnel, assuming there is one?

That may decide if Mark Stoops is there for it, too.