Mark Stoops opens up on the challenges of coaching a team with expectations

Expectations were high for coach Mark Stoops and Kentucky football heading into the 2022 season. Coming off of only their fourth 10-win season in program history in 2021, the Wildcats entered ranked at No. 20 in the preseason AP poll, their first preseason ranking since 1978.

Although it began the season 4-0 and rose as high as No. 7 in the polls, Kentucky has since gone 2-4 and fallen out completely. It hit a new low this past week when lost to Vanderbilt 24-21 at home, allowing the Commodores to snap a 26-game conference losing streak.

In his Monday press conference, Stoops was asked how the high preseason expectations made this year different than his previous nine seasons when the Wildcats were considered an “underdog,” leading to an interesting response.

“I think that’s fair because it’s human nature and we fight against it as strong as we can,” he said. “I had a conversations with one of our leaders and great players yesterday about that. We talked about that exact thing. You know what we can be, but you know we have some youth and things to fill. I’m just not one to — I don’t feel comfortable talking about excuses. You fire (questions) at me like, ‘Do we have a good team?’ What am I gonna say? No? I believe in our players. I believe in our team. I still believe in them. Nobody’s given up. We do have a very good team.”

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Although Mark Stoops and Kentucky haven’t lived up to those expectations so far, they still have a couple of opportunities to finish the regular season strong. However, next week they will face the tall task of taking on defending national champion and No. 1 Georgia.

Stoops knows to even stand a chance in that one, the Wildcats have to limit their mistakes.

“We have to play better in certain situations, as I’ve mentioned a thousand times to the team,” he said. “There’s so many plays in the game, you don’t know which one is gonna determine the outcome of it. We’ve let a couple of games come down to a couple of mistakes. We’re not good enough to overcome ’em, or we didn’t overcome ’em.

“We still have a lot in us. We’ve done a lot of good things. We could certainly be better, but that’s a fair question. It’s a balance that I don’t know if anybody has the exact answer to that. Coaches, we all go through it. We all believe in our team. We go to line up to compete to practice to go play and win every game. I’m not giving up on any. We understand there’s real challenges.”

If Kentucky manages to win one of its final two contests and its bowl game, it will still finish with eight wins, by all means a successful year when you consider its history. However, given the expectations to start the season, it might not feel that way to the team or fan base.

The Wildcats and Bulldogs are set to kick off at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday in Lexington.