What Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said about Tennessee on Wednesday

What Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday as the Wildcats prepare to host No. 17 Tennessee in Saturday night’s 7:45 p.m. Eastern Time start on SEC Network at Kroger Field in Lexington:

Opening Statement

“Looking forward to another great opportunity and great challenge here this week. We’ll be at home again versus Tennessee. Really appreciate our team’s effort to start the week so far after a disappointing loss. And I mentioned it postgame, but our team, really just appreciate the way we’re improving, the way we played for the vast majority of this past game, this past Saturday. And hopefully we can continue to build on the good things that we’re doing and get a few things corrected and go back out there and give it another opportunity here this Saturday versus Tennessee. So looking forward to it. (Tennessee is) a team that is very good, very explosive on offense and extremely disruptive and very good on defense as well, and special teams. So very well-coached team, very good team. So it’ll be another great challenge.”

What Kentucky did well to stop the Texas offense last week

“Yeah, it’s definitely is a tough one to swallow for our team because our players worked so hard to put themselves in a position to win that game, and for all the practices leading up to it. But as far as getting over it, we talked about it, whatever we focus on is going to determine how we feel. And if we hang on to the what if or half yard short or whatever it might be, then that’s going to eat us up. So we have to, to focus on the good things we did and the work and the hard work that the players did throughout the weeks to prepare. So that’s what we’re going to try to focus on and improve on and go from there. 

“As far as defending Texas, I thought our players did a really good job, our coaching staff did a great job and we played extremely hard. I thought we had struggled from time to time this year, like a lot of people, in the open field and on the perimeter against some very talented athletes. And this past week we really defended very well. Great team defense and tried to mix it up quite a bit on Texas and we were effective.”

The growth they’ve seen from Kentucky quarterback Cutter Boley since early in the season

“Just a ton of growth. And I think that’s what excites me, excites a lot of people in the building and with his teammates. He’s just a very good player. He’s very young, but he has certainly taken some very big steps week to week. And hopefully he’ll continue to do that. I thought he did some really good things this past week. In particular, we’ve struggled with completion percentage amongst other things, but just to see him complete nearly 80% against a very, very good defense was exciting to see because he was certainly under duress and getting a lot of pressure on him, but he was able to manage that. And so hopefully we’ll see will continue to progress in the right direction.”

What Kentucky has seen from Tennessee’s defense this season

“I think just a very good defense, very well-coached, but extremely disruptive. Up front, very dominant, very aggressive up front. And this ain’t really, you can say the same aggressive with the second level at linebacker and in the back end, very aggressive unit. You could kind of play downhill when you start up front, you got guys coming after the quarterback. It kind of starts there and lets the second and third levels play equally as aggressive. So a very good unit, very impressed by them.”

What his message was to Kentucky players after the Texas loss, how to take the next step

“Yeah, it felt like we were so close. I felt for our team because I know what they’ve invested, so I understand they’re hurt right after the game and emotions were high because they invested a lot. They worked extremely hard and were trying to improve in a lot of areas. And they played, they gave it a relentless effort and as always, you never know what one, two, three, four plays in a game can change the outcome. It’s not always the most obvious (one). And like I said, we acknowledge the feelings, it hurts, but we can’t live there. We’ve got to look at and focus on the things that we did to put ourselves in that position, and we have to continue to fight because that’s the only way you’re going to get out of this, is fight your way out. So I really appreciate our team and their mentality. And they bounced back this week so far and have had a great start to the week, so hopefully we’ll continue that.” 

Disagreements with officials during games, how he deals with that

“Yeah, our guys (officials) really do do a good job of trying to get you the information and let us vent, if you will. And I think there’s obviously certain times you’re going to see it one way and they’re going to see it another. But they do a good job of communicating with us, I will say that. And listen, everybody makes mistakes. We make them, players make them and certainly from time to time the officials do as well. But that didn’t change the outcome of that game at all. We had every opportunity to win that game. So I wouldn’t say they had any bearing on the outcome.”