WATCH: Mark Stoops' comments after Kentucky's loss to Auburn

Kentucky’s 24-10 loss to Auburn took the Cats’ record to 3-5 this season, 1-5 in the SEC. In many ways, it felt like a repeat performance from last week’s loss to Florida, but the ramifications are much worse. Auburn had a worse record than Kentucky coming into the game and this was Kentucky’s second-best chance at a win in the final five games outside Murray State. The realistic path to a bowl is gone, which would snap the school-record streak of eight postseason appearances.

Mark Stoops didn’t have many answers when he sat down with the media, simply saying his team didn’t play well enough in any phase to win and they’ll go back to work on Monday to try to get better. He also said the fact that Kentucky switched quarterbacks in the second half, playing Gavin Wimsatt instead of Brock Vandagriff, should not be considered a big deal and that the staff made the switch to try to light a fire under the offense.

You can hear all the comments below. Kentucky is back in action next Saturday at No. 7 Tennessee (7:45 PM ET, SEC Network).

Transcript

MARK STOOPS: Alright. I really don’t have much to say. You know, just hit the repeat button. I think you all get tired of hearing the same thing. It’s more of the same. They need to finish drives, they need to get to the end zone. They need to play better in each phase of the game. Just got beat. Bottom line, we got beat. We didn’t play good enough in any phase to win and that’s discouraging. But we have to respond. Again, I’ve told the players all week. Just like Auburn. They have been in a tough situation and they responded and came in here and played extremely tough and didn’t surprise me that they were going to play hard. We just have to match that and we have to get back to playing as good as we can. We’ve got to try to get some guys healthy and get better and look at all options to put our team in a better position to play better next week.

Q Mark. In those early season losses. You guys were still moving the ball and getting first downs. Only 13 tonight, Auburn gets 20. So, what happened to the offense to just not move the ball?

MARK STOOPS: There is no excuse. We got beat. They covered us up and played very aggressive. You know, give credit to them. Hugh came in here and played very good offensively. Moved the ball as good against us as anybody I can remember in a while, anyway. They moved it very well defensively. DJ Durkin is a Youngstown guy and I’ve known DJ for a very long time and he’s done a really good job but they were very aggressive and in our face and pressuring us and we didn’t respond very well. Actually, early on Dane made a couple of great catches and we did get a 10 point lead but after that they kind of stymied us.

Q Mark. Was there something different or some health situation?

MARK STOOPS: No health situation. Just wanted to get a good look at Gavin and see if he can help us move the ball.

Q. How do you think Gavin played?

MARK STOOPS: I have to look at it. It’s not just on Gavin, as you know. It’s what was out there. Did he miss anything? In real time it was just a tough frustrating game. So, we will look at the film and see.

Q Mark. You talked about them moving the ball as well as anybody all year. Early in the season you held some really good offenses. What do you think that has happened with the defense?

MARK STOOPS: You know, we just got to play better. It is what it is. I think we are getting a little bit worn down but, I don’t want to make any excuses.

Q Can it be demoralizing for a defense when the offense isn’t really helping that much?

MARK STOOPS: I don’t think that’s it. I think more – we are more affected by the bodies that we have and the health that we are in. You know, I don’t want to sit here and make excuses. It’s real life and everybody in this league is probably beat up right now and I have to do a better job of making sure we have the depth that we need to compete.

Q The offense after JP’s interception –?

MARK STOOPS: It’s certainly not good. I don’t know what order it was in. But yeah, that wasn’t a good possession. I don’t know if that was the third possession of the game or not but I know we moved it on the first two and then after that we didn’t move it very good.

Q Mark. You said explore options. Are you going to throw the quarterback competition open?

MARK STOOPS: I don’t want any headlines on that. Gavin has been playing all year. We had – we planned on putting him in the third series of the game. But we moved the ball very well in the first two. Right? So. If I put him in in the first series of the game, but in hindsight it would have ran out anyway but you’d be asking me why in the world did I take him out when we were moving the ball. You know what I’m saying? I think we judge that and say we are moving the ball pretty good, let’s stick with what is going right. We went three and out and you know, that’s it.

Q When he comes in and its three and out back to back and a seven point game and you stick with him and that leads to questions to whether you make the quarterback switch there.

MARK STOOPS: I don’t know, I don’t need that to dominate the headlines. We are not playing very well. It’s never on one person. You know, so. If it is Gavin or if it’s Brock, whoever it is. They can only do so much. It is a team effort. I know everybody likes to concentrate on the quarterback position. And I know it’s a story. Bottom line is we are not playing winning football on the offensive side. And I would rather that be the headline then on any one person.

Q Mark. Give me an update on JJ [Weaver]?

MARK STOOPS: He’s got an ankle injury.

Q On that note before he got injured – how big of a play was that?

MARK STOOPS: That was a very big play for him to limp over and we were yelling at him too. Players have a lot on their plate and they are out there playing hard and he gets a sack and he’s injured but the awareness that they are out of timeouts but it doesn’t always happen that way and it was huge that he got back and got lined up and the time expired.

Q Mark. You talked about your team responding. How you handle the – trying to keep the morale of the team up with the double losses stacking up here? Two top teams away.

MARK STOOPS: Again, it’s like that every week. It’s just brutal. It’s hard. It’s tough. It’s a tough league. We have to man up. Bottom line. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Our players know that and they got to get back to work and we have do a better job. I told them in there, it’s on me. And I’ve got to do a better job. We’ve got to get them in a better position to play better. We’ve got to, you know, we just all have to do a better job. Obviously, it starts with me and I know people get tired of hearing that but we are not playing winning football right now.

Q Was there ever an instinct to put Brock back in the game in that second half or was you like Gavin is doing the whole second half?

MARK STOOPS: Really, there was not a lot of possession in the way they were moving the ball. We were not moving it very well; it went relatively fast. I think at that point we did get it down to the two and once again we can’t punch it in. We got an opportunity there to cut it to a one score game. And we failed.

Q Mark. The second half with Auburn when that first position it looks like they really took care of–kind of set the tone for the second half the way they had the offense roll.

MARK STOOPS: You know, they did a nice job. We were a little of balance all night, I think. You know, we can play better than we did. And again, you have to give them the credit for a lot of the good. They moved us. They have a back that makes you miss. They ran for an awful lot of yards. So – it’s both credit them and we need to do better.

Q You eliminated the running back tonight –how do you feel like you are trying to emphasize to those guys?

MARK STOOPS: I think it’s fair. We tried to have a good game plan with what we had. It is what it is.

Q: [INAUDIBLE]

MARK STOOPS: I thought they did a decent job. I thought they played really good upfront. They kind of controlled the game with their front.

Q Going down to the two again. What is your message to your team?

MARK STOOPS: We’ve got to look at what we are doing. We got to look at how we are playing. We got to look at all options. You can’t point fingers. We’ve got to find some solutions, clearly. It’s very frustrating. You know, there’s no excuses. There’s nothing I’m going to say that’s the right answer. We’ve got to do a better job. Right?

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