John Clay of the Herald-Leader has three thoughts after Kentucky’s debacle of a loss to Southern Miss.
Clay says it was a bad night for Mark Stoops and a good night for Shannon Dawson.
Here’s an excerpt:
1. It was a bad night for Mark Stoops
A very bad night. An awfully bad night. To be an SEC team up 35-10 in the second quarter and be blitzed 34-0 the rest of the way by the visitors from Conference-USA was enough to force the head coach to feel the need to issue a public apology to the fans afterward.
“They deserve better,” he said.
Truth be told, the fan base was a big question coming into the game. An announced crowd of 57,230 attended the opener, though ticket give-aways and promotions were used to get to that total. Unless the Cats can pull an upset over Florida — a team it has lost to 29 straight years — next week in The Swamp, there doesn’t figure to be a big crowd when UK returns home to face New Mexico State on Sept. 17.
In the meantime, Stoops has to focus on a defense that had no answers for Southern Miss in the second half. Time after time, down after down, the visitors ran the football at and through UK defenders. Pre-game, the book on UK was that the defense, especially the front seven, could be a problem area. That proved to be true.
