LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – It’s 1:30 a.m. The talk radio shows have ended. The room is dark, lit only by SEC football highlights.
And the Mark Stoops era is approaching its denouement.
He’s still the football coach at Kentucky. Still the winningest coach Kentucky has ever had. But if there’s a way out of the hole he has dug, I don’t see it. They haven’t made the backhoe big enough. The only variable, a noted Kentucky alum once said, is time.
Saturday’s 35-13 loss at South Carolina wasn’t the last straw. But it was part of the same old straw that fans have been sucking on like an empty milkshake cup for two years.
You keep thinking there’s something left in there. Kentucky executes flawlessly and takes a 7-0 lead, then a 10-7 lead.
Then, in a span of 45 seconds, it’s over. That sucking sound you hear is hope running out.
Cutter Boley, the redshirt freshman making his first road start at quarterback, is sacked and fumbles. Kentucky’s Shiyazh Pete tries to fall on it, but the ball rolls away and Jatius Geer scoops it up and runs 41 yards for a touchdown.
Moments later, Gerald Kilgore intercepts a deflected pass and sprints 45 yards for a touchdown.
Game over. Sure, there was a lot of football still to play, the better part of three quarters. But it was not the kind of football Kentucky excels at. Some teams might regroup, answer with a touchdown maybe, and stabilize. Not Kentucky. Not in this period of the Stoops era.
That’s not their thing. You get up double-digits on Kentucky, you load the box, pin your ears back, bring the heat and wait for them to wilt. You make them pass. And more often than not, they fail.
“Obviously that's a critical momentum shift when we're moving the ball, playing physical, playing a close game,” Stoops said afterward. “…Those (turnovers) are just things that are going to just completely take you right out of the game and game plan in a place like this, and put us in some predictable spots that are not good for us.”
They haven’t been good for Kentucky for a while. Nobody likes third and long, or double-digit deficits. But for Kentucky they feel like a death sentence, no matter who the quarterback is, or the play caller.
Kentucky’s game is to play close. Get a lead. Control possession. If it gets off that schedule, hold your bets.
But there’s something wrong structurally if 45 bad seconds can undo you, if you can be knocked off your game plan in less time than it takes to nuke a burrito.
Here was Kentucky. After two defensive scores and one disastrous minute, it was cooked. If it were a country song, it would be, “A Minute’s All It Takes (To Lose It All Again).” I wonder if Chris Stapleton is still awake.
In the second quarter, Stoops was trying to avoid a sideline collision when he tripped over the down marker and fell backwards. He sprung back up. His team did not.
Truthfully, nothing has been the same since Stoops told fans via his radio show to “pony up” if they wanted see better players.
Since that day nearly two years ago, it’s been futility. Now, Kentucky has lost seven straight in the SEC and 11 of their last 12. In 10 SEC games under offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan, they’ve not scored more than two offensive touchdowns in any of them. On Saturday, South Carolina's defense outscored Kentucky's offense.
It was a lot to hang on Boley. But having to hang it on Boley also falls at Stoops' feet.
In a modern game that starts from the quarterback and radiates out, you get the feeling that Stoops wants to start at linebacker. Quarterback jobs in the SEC should be among the most coveted in college football. If Kentucky is lacking, or not attractive to some of the nation's best, that’s a red flag.
Heading into last week, I re-examined the SEC and asked, why not? Maybe there was a route to respectability. South Carolina was struggling, as is Florida. Auburn isn’t unbeatable. After Saturday night, I’m asking, why did I think that? Opportunity lost.
What does Kentucky do with Stoops and his $38 million buyout? Probably nothing. Hope he's right when he says, "I know it could turn at any time."
That "could" is doing a lot of work there. Maybe they promote him, trade his headset for a corner office. Can you even do that?
After a long night in Columbia, with its incessant rooster crowing, the wake-up message is clear.
We know how this ends. The Pony Up Express is heading toward the station. The only question is how long until it arrives.
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