Will Stein didn’t sugarcoat Kentucky’s 34-6 loss to Tennessee. He went straight to the mistakes that buried the Wildcats, from turnovers to penalties to missed chances on fourth down, and made it clear the damage came from Kentucky beating itself as much as anything Tennessee did.
“Look, credit to Tennessee,” Stein said to open his postgame press conference. “They won the game.
A lot of uncharacteristic plays by us tonight. You know, can’t turn the ball over three times.
That’s an obvious. Had some fourth-down mistakes.
Had penalties. Stuff that we’ve controlled all year long and did not play to our standard tonight.
“You know, it’s a hurt locker room. We haven’t experienced losing in a long time, which is really good.
But we’ve got to learn from it. We’ve got to grow.
We’ve got to go back to work. There’s no loser’s limp.
There’s no poor me’s. We got beat, and now it’s about resetting our focus for this next week.”
The night was especially rough for Kenny Minchey, who gave the ball away twice. He threw his first interception since the Alabama game and also lost a fumble on a sack. Tennessee entered the matchup leading the nation in sacks and backed that up, dropping Minchey four times for 37 yards.
Still, Stein pushed back on the idea that Tennessee’s pass rush alone decided it. He said Kentucky moved the ball for much of the night, but couldn’t finish drives and kept handing the Vols extra chances. The Wildcats had opportunities; they just failed to cash in.
“We were moving the ball. We just weren’t scoring touchdowns, and you obviously have to score on the road and not be - we had seven penalties for 50 yards.
We had three turnovers. That was the story of the game.
The turnovers.”
Even with the loss, Stein pointed to the bigger picture. Kentucky had responded to its first defeat by ripping off six straight wins, and he believes the same kind of reset can keep the Wildcats on track for their goals.
“I told the guys, I mean, we’re 7-2, we’re 5-2 in the league. Everything that we want is still right in front of us. So we have a really tough test at home next week against Florida, and we’ve got to reset our focus.”
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