Kentucky had a chance to win the SEC East on Saturday. Instead, the Wildcats fell to Georgia, 34-17, as the Bulldogs clinched their spot in the SEC Championship Game.

It’s been a remarkable season for Kentucky, but it couldn’t keep up with the defending SEC champions.

“This one hurts,” Stoops said during his postgame press conference. “Really have to give credit to Georgia. They beat us in all phases. We’ll learn a lot from this. We did not execute at times, at times we got out-manned. We missed more tackles than I can remember.”

But Stoops remains optimistic about his team moving forward.

“Any time you invest as much as you do into a game like this, it’s going to hurt. But we can’t let this one loss turn into two,” Stoops said. “You lean on the leaders of this football team. We got beat tonight and we have to regroup and go about our business.”

Kentucky will look to bounce back when it travels to Tennessee next Saturday.

Watch Stoops’ press conference below, courtesy of the Kentucky Kernel: