Mark Stoops details what he wants Kentucky to carry over from Missouri win

The Kentucky Wildcats pulled out a hard-fought win on the road this weekend as they defeated Missouri 21-17. The Wildcats showed a ton of toughness and emotional investment in their victory on Saturday, and head coach Mark Stoops was asked if he would make it a point to his team to highlight and carry that into their next matchup.

“I will for sure talk to that about the team just because if we didn’t have that mindset, if we weren’t prepared like that, we wouldn’t have won the game,” Stoops said. “Because there’s emotional swings, there’s ups, there’s downs, there’s gonna be good, and there’s gonna be bad, but our team was resilient and they were tough and I thought we were very unselfish.”

Saturday was certainly an up-and-down game for Kentucky, as they closed out the third quarter with a 14-3 lead over the Tigers but then found themselves down 17-14 with eight minutes left in the game. Thankfully for them, they overcame the adversity, as quarterback Will Levis found wide receiver Dane Key for his third touchdown pass of the day to give them the late lead that they’d hold onto till the end of regulation.

CLICK HERE to subscribe for FREE to the On3 YouTube channel

“I think we learned, again I showed them, two years ago we were in that same situation and went up there and it was the opposite. And not that they weren’t ready to play because they were, they played very hard, I have a lot of respect for the way they play, and how hard they play, and how well they coach them to be that way,” Stoops said.

Stoops is referring to their 2020 matchup versus Missouri, another low-scoring, hard-fought affair where the Wildcats fell 20-10 and generated just 145 yards of total offense. This year’s team looked a lot different, learning from their past woes on the road in Columbia and getting the last laugh when it was all said and done.

“But we had to match that or exceed it and I was proud of our team’s effort, because again one of the things we talk about you learn from those scars. You learn from the things you do wrong or mistakes so we were ready for it,” Stoops said.

Stoops and the Wildcats will be looking to build off of their recent win and they should be able to, as they take on a Vanderbilt team at home this week that is seeking their first conference win since 2019.