Mark Stoops holds team meeting to discuss 'inexcusable' mistakes, accountability: "If they can't handle that, they can move on."

Mark Stoops had a number of monkeys hanging on his back entering the Vanderbilt matchup, namely Kentucky‘s abysmal record coming off bye weeks while carrying a losing streak in SEC home matchups. He relayed that message to his players, using it as a motivational tool before taking on a group coming off an upset win over No. 1 Alabama. No overlooking the Commodores — or so he thought.

The Wildcats responded by extending the streaks to 5-10 after the bye and 2-10 in conference home games — six straight in the latter category. As double-digit favorites, UK laid a massive egg, just as it did against South Carolina in the SEC opener.

That led to a pretty difficult Sunday in the film room, Stoops admits.

“Sundays are terribly rough, just like they are on fans. Just like they are on players and everybody,” he said during his call-in radio show. “We’re in there working all day.”

Mondays, however, are used to regroup with the team. And he used that opportunity to stress accountability after self-inflicted errors killed their chances to pull off the win.

“It’s good for me on Mondays. I’m so busy on Mondays, getting ready for press conference, getting ready for my team meeting,” he said. “The biggest thing is messaging for the week and getting ready for that team meeting. And I thought it went very well with a lot of accountability needed to be shown and done in a lot of areas. We’ve watched all that (film) and watched it together as a team. Started from there.”

What’s the approach in a meeting after your team committed 12 penalties for 106 yards while turning the ball over twice, shot in the foot after shot in the foot? The proof lies in the film — no hiding there. It’s not about singling out any one player or making someone feel bad, but rather highlighting where things went wrong for the Wildcats.

Glaring errors are glaring errors, though. And if individuals are caught in the line of fire making them over and over again, so be it.

“For me, it’s just very precise and solution-based. Just very factual talk, very open. I feel like I have a good relationship with our team and mutual respect with our staff and our players. It’s a good group. I think they mean well, but there’s certainly accountability that needs to be had,” Stoops said. “We were very direct with that. I took a good dose of plays with the whole team in there. For me, it’s not so much trying to single guys out. It’s more of like, why? Why do we go from being the least penalized team in the league to having 12? Why does this happen? What is the reason?

“So it’s not so much finger pointing, but when I put it up on the screen and show it to the whole team, certain plays, certain mishaps and things that are done that are inexcusable, we need to find a reason why this happens. … You break it down and you start looking at everything. Some of the mistakes are inexcusable. I’m not going to sit here and try to defend it. You can’t defend it, it is what it is. We have to look at it and we’ve got to find a way to get it corrected.”

At this point, it’s not about taking care of feelings, it’s about finding results and growing as a team. Stoops isn’t here to babysit. If that’s what the players are looking for, they are free to leave.

“You’re grown. I don’t anticipate anybody in here being sensitive because I’m calling you out in front of the whole team,” Stoops said. “It’s not about pointing fingers, it’s about finding a solution to why we’re making the same mistakes and getting them corrected.

“If they can’t handle that, then they can move on.”