WATCH: Mark Stoops says Kentucky was "Close" in Ole Miss Loss

There are two ways to look at Kentucky’s 30-23 loss to Ole Miss. Mark Stoops is well aware of the bad, but he tried to look at the glass half full and focused on the good during his Monday press conference at Kroger Field.

“There was a lot of good things, and that we have to build on, and a lot of mistakes we got to get corrected. But we played winning football for much of that game, so we got to learn to capitalize, finish it off, and play better in critical moments. But we did a lot of good things. Excited to get back to work today and get ready for Eastern Michigan,” Stoops opened his presser.

Stoops is correct. It wasn’t all bad on Saturday. Kentucky had a 10-point lead over a Top 20 team in the country. The Wildcats got inside the 30-yard line twice in the fourth quarter with a chance to tie the game.

“Credit Ole Miss with that. They put you in a bind, they stress you, and they have talented guys, but you look at the way we competed, the way we played them, and we played them very well.,” said Stoops.

Much of the focus and attention from disgruntled Kentucky football fans is on the pre-snap offensive execution, particularly at the end of the half. The Cats had just a little more than a minute to get into field goal range without a timeout. Chunk plays from Seth McGowan and Ja’Mori Maclin got them in striking distance. That was positive, quickly followed by a negative.

Kentucky was flagged for an illegal formation, pushing them out of field goal range. That was one of two small, costly mistakes.

“Our receiver pointed to be on the line. He didn’t confirm it with the official. But I mean, you’re six inches from an explosive that got called back,” Stoops recalled. “Basically, the last play of the first half, we’re four inches from finishing that drive to perfection.”

Kentucky made plenty of inexcusable mistakes on offense. Stoops does not believe they need to drastically transform their operation in order to ensure those mistakes do not resurface.

“It’s very correctable. There’s things that, you watch it and you’re so close. Like I mentioned, the end of the end of the first half frustrated everybody. But that thing, we ran four plays before it got out of reach, right? I mean, the first three plays were perfect, I mean perfection, and the fourth play we’re six inches off from being perfect. But it frustrates everybody because that six inches matters.”

Tony D’Amato taught us that football, and life, is a game of inches. Those inches did not add up for Kentucky on Saturday.

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