It was just over a year ago that a jacked up Mark Stoops made his way to his postgame press conference ready to send a message.

His team had just beaten South Carolina in Columbia, which marked the fourth consecutive time that Kentucky knocked off the Gamecocks. Kentucky, however, entered that game as a significant underdog. The talk all week centered on 2-0 South Carolina and how the Gamecocks were ready to make another big push in the SEC East.

Stoops and the Wildcats took notice. He made sure to address the overwhelming doubt surrounding his team and how it served as a motivator.

“Quite honestly, we were tired of it,” Stoops said after last year’s South Carolina win. “What, like we didn’t get better? Like we’re not a better football team? Whatever. We’re better.”

A year later, Kentucky is better.

The Wildcats are coming off a win over No. 14 Mississippi State in which they again, shocked the world. As double-digit underdogs, they blasted the Bulldogs and subsequently earned their first Associated Press Top 25 ranking since 2007. That was 2 weeks after Kentucky ended its 31-year losing streak to Florida and stomped the Gators in The Swamp.

This was said before the MSU win:

Kentucky heads into Saturday’s matchup with South Carolina at 2-0 in the SEC for the first time since 1977. Even though they opened as 1-point underdogs, the line already shifted with the Wildcats looking like potential favorites to take care of the Gamecocks at home.

Needless to say, Kentucky is getting more love than ever. The question is if they know what to do with it.

The “everyone is doubting us” narrative has fueled Kentucky to this point. The Wildcats are still just No. 17 in the AP poll despite being the only team with a pair of victories against ranked SEC teams.

At the heart of that has been Benny Snell, who came into the year saying he didn’t get enough respect nationally coming off his first-team All-SEC nod. Teammates claimed that Snell was not only the best back in the SEC, but that he was “the best back in the nation.”

Before Snell took on MSU’s defensive line with a pair of All-Americans, he said “he’ll run on anybody.” He then ripped off 165 yards and 4 touchdowns and led Kentucky to its biggest win in a decade. Through 4 weeks, Snell has talked the talk and walked the walk. He ranks third in FBS with 540 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns, and he even cracked the latest Heisman Trophy odds.

Clearly, Snell is embracing this us-against-the-world mentality:

Snell is the Ohio native who was told he wasn’t good enough to play at Ohio State, as was the case for plenty of players on Stoops’ squad. Josh Allen, who has been an All-American in September, struggled just to get an FCS offer out of high school.

But now, the college football world is taking the Wildcats seriously.

They’re the national darling after taking care of a Mississippi State team many believed would be a force in the SEC West. It’d be stunning to see the entire College GameDay crew pick against Kentucky like they did last week against the Bulldogs (Lee Corso was on record saying it’d be “an easy victory” for MSU). If there’s a better underdog story in college football right now outside of the one in Lexington, you’d be hard pressed to find it.

It’s been a week of SEC Network appearances, Heisman campaigns, NFL draft hype videos and probably more national attention than the program has had since that 2007 season. The distractions are more plentiful than ever.

Will that impact the chip on Kentucky’s shoulder? Is it possible that in a game that it feels like the Wildcats should win, they turn into the hunted instead of the hunter?

We won’t have an answer to that until Saturday.

It’s ironic, though, that the team that seems to acknowledge the outside noise more than anyone, might be better off blocking it out this week. Assuming a win against South Carolina would be an easy thing to do given the 4-game streak, the momentum and the Gamecocks’ disappointing performance against Georgia a couple weeks ago.

Win or lose Saturday, it seems certain that Stoops won’t enter the postgame press conference with the same edge he had last year when his team upset South Carolina on the road.

The one-sided second half against MSU prevented any chance of that happening. After being tied at halftime, that felt like a potential turning point for Kentucky. In one half, the Wildcats morphed from feel-good story into contenders.

“We went out in the second half and showed them that we play real football here now,” Allen said after Saturday’s Mississippi State win. “We’re here. We’re letting everybody know we’re not going nowhere.”

The Cats are here, alright. Let’s see where they go.