Mark Stoops’ 12 years into his Kentucky football coaching career all wasted ,he said on a radio broadcast….
Now 12 years into his Kentucky football coaching career, Mark Stoops’ stance on moral victories is clear.
“We’re 10 years past that,” Stoops said after his team fell just short in a 13-12 loss to No. 1 Georgia. “But I do care about the way we play. I do care about our preparation. I care about the way we represent the fan base, the way we represent this university, the way we play.
“And we played hard and thought we had opportunities to win a game.”
Stoops might dismiss the idea of a moral victory, but how Kentucky fans feel about the near miss against Georgia likely comes down to their opinion on the subject.
After an abysmal showing in a home loss to an unranked South Carolina team a week ago, no one gave Kentucky a chance to even keep things close against Georgia. The fact that the Wildcats led at the end of three quarters and had a possession with a chance to take a lead late in the fourth quarter would have certainly shocked almost all of the 61,000-plus fans at Kroger Field before the game.
But when Stoops elected to punt on fourth-and-7 at the Georgia 47-yard line with 3:02 remaining in the game and Kentucky down by one point, the decision certainly looked like an admission that UK’s offense was not up to the task of gaining 7 yards in that situation.
