Mark Stoops: UK football’s response to adversity in South Carolina loss ‘not acceptable’

For all of Mark Stoops’ success at Kentucky, Saturday’s 31-6 loss to South Carolina was far from the first lopsided loss in his tenure.

But as Stoops began his postgame news conference, he compared the feeling walking off the field to the same one he experienced a week earlier due to a disjointed opener that was delayed more than two hours and ended early due to lightning.

“Last week after our game, I sat here and said I hadn’t been through anything like that in my time here, and this week, I could kind of feel the exact same way,” Stoops said. “We’ve been beaten pretty badly by some really good football teams, and I felt like our team always fought back. Always.

“We talk about it all the time. You get punched, you get hit, you swing back. Very disappointed and not happy with us, our coaching, our response, the way we played.”

Asked to clarify if he felt his team quit against South Carolina, Stoops made sure to point out he did not use that word.

But he repeatedly returned to the theme of not providing the response to adversity he expects from his teams throughout his postgame comments.

“Last week I thought under all those chaotic circumstances we played relatively clean like we’ve, we’ve coached them,” Stoops said. “And today, it didn’t look like we’re a very well coached team and it didn’t look like a team that really wanted to respond.

“No coach speak here, that’s 100% on me and on us. No excuses. They beat us in every facet, and we didn’t respond, we didn’t play very good, we didn’t coach very good.”

Kentucky’s rushing attack looked productive early with running back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye tallying 26 yards on his first four carries, but the rhythm quickly faltered.

On Kentucky’s second drive after a 9-yard first-down carry from Sumo-Karngbaye, quarterback Brock Vandagriff made the wrong read on a play-action play, handing off to wide receiver Barion Brown for a jet sweep instead of keeping it himself for an open running lane. Brown was tackled for a 7-yard loss, and Vandagriff was able to only completed a 2-yard pass on third-and-8 under pressure.

South Carolina found a wide-open receiver for a 24-yard touchdown for its first points on the following drive. Kentucky looked ready to counter with a 32-yard pass from Vandagriff to Dane Key, but the next three plays all lost yardage, including back-to-back sacks.

Kentucky’s defense forced a punt, but Vandagriff opened the next UK drive with a flag for intentional grounding when he made a desperation heave in an attempt to avoid a third consecutive sack.

Vandagriff would not complete another pass in the game.

“South Carolina’s defensive line, they played a great game,” Vandagriff said. “Some of that’s definitely on me, though. Just got to be able to get the ball out, be able to move around the pocket and stuff. Dudes were open. Just got to make sure to do my job of getting them the ball.”

The early offensive struggles were compounded when Stoops elected to go for a fourth-and-1 conversion at UK’s own 31-yard line in the second quarter and Vandagriff was unable to gain the needed yardage on a quarterback dive. The defense held South Carolina to just a field goal, but momentum still lagged.

Kentucky’s most successful drive consisted of 11 consecutive handoffs to the running backs, but even that possession stalled with a 32-yard field goal. When safety Ty Bryant gave Kentucky possession back at the South Carolina 27-yard line with 1:39 left in the half with an interception, the offense could gain just 7 yards before settling for a 39-yard field goal.

The Wildcats looked on the verge of seizing control of the game after forcing a South Carolina punt to open the second half, but more offensive futility followed with a three-and-out. After the Gamecocks followed a third-and-14 conversion with another touchdown pass to a wide-open receiver, UK’s offense started a drive with three consecutive penalties that negated positive gains.

“It was almost every time we felt we made a play early on first and second down, obviously, we had a self-inflicted wound,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “And so certainly behind the sticks for most of that second half.”

From there the full collapse was on.

South Carolina took advantage of the short field provided it after UK’s penalty-riddled drive with a Raheim Sanders touchdown run. Vandagriff’s final play of the game was an interception returned for a touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter.

Backup quarterback Gavin Wimsatt fared little better, throwing an interception of his own while completing just 3 of 7 passes in garbage time.

“It’s embarrassing,” center Eli Cox said. “What Coach said to us before: We got punched in the mouth and never responded. I think that is uncharacteristic of this program, where it’s been before. It’s an unacceptable performance from this whole team. No excuses for anybody.”

If finding a response to adversity against South Carolina was an issue, what happens when No. 1 Georgia travels to Kroger Field next week? Or on road trips to Ole Miss, Florida, Tennessee and Texas?

Even in the disappointing back-to-back 7-6 seasons of 2022 and 2023, Kentucky found a way to salvage something after their most disappointing performances of the year.

The 2022 Wildcats followed a loss to Vanderbilt, which snapped the Commodores’ 26-game SEC losing streak, with a 16-6 defeat to No. 1 Georgia then rallied to beat arch rival Louisville in the regular-season finale. The 2023 Wildcats followed an abysmal performance in a loss at South Carolina with a win over a top-10 Louisville team a week later.

But the Governor’s Cup rivalry and the emotion it brings are still months away. Stoops and company have to find a fix much faster than that.

“I don’t need to put a headline out there,” Stoops said. “I’m not real happy with the way we played. I’m not real happy with the way we coached. I’m not real happy with the way we responded, the way we executed, our effort, any of it.

“It’s not good enough. It’s not not acceptable.”