LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – They came, they saw, they covered. And if that were all college football were about – a wagering proposition with helmets – then maybe Kentucky could be satisfied with the progress in Saturday’s 30-23 loss to No. 20 Ole Miss in Kroger Field.
Kentucky beat the projections. Raise your hand if you thought a blowout could happen. Instead, It had two chances to tie the game or even win in the final minutes. One drive stalled at the Ole Miss 20 and the other at its 26.
That close. In and of itself, respectable. Ole Miss is really good. There’s a degree of difficulty in what Mark Stoops and the Wildcats are trying to do. I don’t want to gloss over that.
The problem is this. The program has been here for a while. Good enough to get to this point, but not good enough, often enough, to make that one more play to break through the FieldTurf ceiling.
Good, but not good enough.
And for this program, in what many view as a decisive season, that’s also the worst possible outcome.
The peril of the middle
A blowout loss brings clarity. An upset win creates momentum. But this? This is the fog of football. It’s the purgatory of “almost.” And in all but a few seasons of Stoops’ tenure in Lexington (and even, to a degree, in his best seasons), this is where it has lived.
What do you do with this?
When you can come within a point of Georgia and beat Ole Miss on the road, then lose to Vanderbilt? When you start out 2-0 in the SEC, then go 1-5 in the rest.
And now the league is adding another conference game? When Kentucky has lost eight home SEC games in a row and won just 2 of its past 12 in Kroger Field?
Sometimes coming close isn’t as close as it seems.
The Stoops question
It’s easy to know what to do when Joker Phillips goes 2-10. Or when Bill Curry strings together seven straight non-winning seasons. The numbers do the talking. And so do the fans.
But what do you do with Mark Stoops?
The winningest coach in school history. The dean of SEC coaches. The man who turned recruiting into relevance. Who gave Kentucky football a backbone.
What do you do if he gives you six wins this season? That’s a lot less likely after Saturday’s loss, but teams can improve. It could happen. Florida lost to South Florida on Saturday, a team ranked 22 spots below Kentucky in Sagarin’s ratings heading into the game. The team that could’ve sprung the upset on Ole Miss could spring one on somebody.
That’s what they told us Saturday. They’re good enough to put themselves into position to beat good teams.
But what do you do with a coach who may not be good enough to actually beat them?
This is the hard part. Because Stoops hasn’t failed. He’s just stalled. And the engine is still running, but nobody’s sure which direction it’s going. And even when they find answers, they raise more questions.
Cutter Boley came on at quarterback for the final two drives, replacing injured starter Zach Calzada. And he showed some things. Stoops says he “wants to see more” of Boley, so he’s likely going to start Saturday against Eastern Michigan. But it makes you wonder, why hasn’t he been the starter the past two games? And what is going on with Kentucky’s offense, period?
You see what I’m talking about.
Even now, with a defense that plays like it means it, and a stable of backs that look like they belong, Kentucky is 1-1 and staring ahead at three straight Top 10 opponents after Saturday’s visit from Eastern Michigan. You might take a little bit of hope from Saturday’s performance, sure, but also a lot of familiar futility.
Respectable doesn’t equal rewarding
Stoops’ teams fight. They play hard. You can often see something building in players like Ty Bryant, who had two interceptions on Saturday and said afterward, “It felt amazing… I just wish we would’ve got the win.”
There’s no lack of pride in that locker room. Just a lack of payoff.
Maybe they will get better. Seth McGowan, who had flashes of brilliance, said afterward, “The things we have to fix are minuscule, and they are fixable.”
But the SEC doesn’t reward progress. It grades on the steepest curve in college football. For a good while, Kentucky has been close enough to believe, but not close enough to achieve.
Which makes the Stoops question even harder.
Up the road, Indiana made the college football playoff last season. And yes, if Kentucky had that schedule, the outlook would be brighter. Down the road, Louisville has had two BCS Bowl wins and a Heisman Trophy winner. It’s been to a conference championship game. If Kentucky were in the ACC, its football future would be brighter.
But it isn’t. You put that SEC patch on your chest, you accept that challenge.
SEC coaches and media picked Kentucky to finish next-to-last in the 16-team league this season. The team that took Ole Miss to the wire on Saturday looked better than a next-to-last place team.
It looked like a team with the potential to beat a Top 20 opponent. But it didn’t.
And that, if you’re Kentucky, is the worst place it can be.
If you’re just not good enough, the course is clear. If you’re almost good enough, it’s cloudy.
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