Stoops talks wins record, "soft" comments, victory drinks on SEC This Morning

We’ll hear from Mark Stoops at his press conference at noon and his call-in show tonight. First, he hopped on “SEC This Morning” with Peter Burns and Chris Doering to talk about Kentucky’s big win over Florida, which moved him past Bear Bryant on the program’s all-time wins list and pushed the Cats into the top ten of both polls. If you missed the appearance live, here are the highlights.

Stoops admits it meant more to break the record at Florida

We knew Mark Stoops would break Bear Bryant’s record at some point early this season. The safe bet was vs. Youngstown State this Saturday at Kroger Field, which would have been fitting considering Stoops is a Youngstown native. Instead, it happened in the Swamp vs. Florida. Kentucky finally broke the 31-year losing streak to Florida in 2018, and four years later, beat the Gators again to cement Stoops’ name in program history, which he admitted was an especially sweet and satisfying moment.

“When I got here, everybody was obsessed about [the losing streak] because it had been so long and for me, early on, I really didn’t really worry about that whatsoever because we had so much work to do,” Stoops said. “That was my big concentration of just constantly building our program getting better and getting better eventually we’ll knock down these doors and we’ve knocked down quite a few so but to do it at Florida, after them coming off a big win, it was important because I think it meant something a little bit more to our fan base as well as our team.”

“Nobody flinched”

Kentucky held Florida scoreless in the second half. Stoops raved about the defense’s “incredible” performance, which he credited to Brad White’s game plan, and the entire team’s poise in the Swamp. All week, Kentucky piped in crowd noise to prepare the Cats for a rowdy environment in Gainesville.

“Will Levis came to me early in the week and said, ‘Coach, I want it so loud in practice, I can’t hear anything and have a real hard time communicating.’ So we had it really loud and they did a great job of preparing and we went out there and executed.

“It wasn’t pretty the first half but nobody flinched. Everybody just calmed down. We felt like we played pretty bad and went into the locker room down three and we knew we were getting the football to start the second half, so there’s no panic. We’ve been through this. We have a lot of experienced players and everybody just regrouped and we went out and really dominated and took care of the second half.”

Roman Harper’s “soft” comments resonated

Burns and Doering had to get a dig in at their SEC Network coworker Roman Harper for his comments that Kentucky’s offensive line was soft, which were heard loud and clear around the football facilities last week.

“I think you know, from an outsider’s perspective, some people hit the panic button,” Stoops said of Kentucky’s season-opening win vs. Miami (OH). “Not you guys, but some national people hit the panic button but you know, we weren’t worried about it here. We felt like we got it under control and got it fixed.”

“You mean you didn’t think you guys were soft?” Burns quipped.

“That’s funny,” Stoops said, laughing.

“As I said prior to the game and it’s true, we don’t need motivation to get ready to go play Florida. We really don’t. But when people say things like that, let’s not kid ourselves. Nobody, nobody — that’s not something that anybody’s ever said about the University of Kentucky and I hope as long as I’m the head coach, they won’t say it again.

“And you know, I mean it is what it is. I could go on and on right now and throw shade, but that’s not my style. You know, there are really elite people in every organization and then there are people in the middle and there are people at the bottom. You know what I mean?”

That’s my coach.

Stoops brings up Louisville when asked about future scheduling

With the SEC adding Texas and Oklahoma, odds are very high the league will move to nine conference games. When asked about future scheduling, Stoops mentioned the importance of the Louisville game, a sign Kentucky wants to keep it moving forward.

“We play Louisville every year and they are a very good football team. I know they’ve had their moments like we all do, with some ups and downs. But heck, when I started playing this conference and playing Louisville, they were a top-five, top-ten team. That is a marquee matchup and it’s something very important to our state. Again, each of us will go through our seasons where we’re really good and, and so on. So, we expect always a tough game with Louisville.”

“Half of Youngstown” is coming to Lexington

This weekend, Kentucky hosts Youngstown State in what many expected to be the game Stoops broke Bear Bryant’s all-time wins record. The Cats took care of that in Gainesville but Stoops is expecting quite a crowd of family and friends to make the trip down from his hometown this week.

“They’re not going to be intimidated by coming in here, that’s for sure. The only thing I’m really concerned about is how in the world — I think I’m gonna go into hiding on Thursday and Friday night because half of Youngstown is gonna be here. That’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

Stoops’ postgame victory drink?

Burns and Doering wrapped up the segment by asking Stoops what his drink of choice was following Kentucky’s win on Saturday. Stoops channeled Arkansas’ Sam Pittman when he said he started with a nice cold beer before moving on to bourbon.

“I could always relate to Sam. Sam and I get along really good. I have great respect for him and the job that he’s doing. But yeah, my drinking choices, I could go with a cold beer with no problem. Matter of fact, I think I think my first one was a cold beer after that. And then of course I had to sip on good some good Kentucky bourbon.”

Coming this summer to the SEC Network: “Cold Ones” featuring Sam Pittman and Mark Stoops. I’d watch it.

We’ll pass along the video of the segment once it’s online. Until then, check out Stoops’ Zoom setup, which was rated 8/10 by Room Rater.

Good football coach setup. Missed two point conversion when camera height fell short. 8/10 @UKCoachStoops pic.twitter.com/QlJHXjppMO

— Room Rater (@ratemyskyperoom) September 12, 2022