An attempt to make sense of Kentucky’s roller coaster season
By Ethan Levine
Published:
Kentucky’s 2014 season really felt more like two different seasons when all was said and done.
The Wildcats closed their “first season” with a promising 5-1 record, posting more wins in those six games than it could boast the previous two years combined.
Kentucky won its first SEC contest in three years with a win over Vanderbilt, and pushed a Florida team it hasn’t beaten since the mid-1980s to triple overtime in the Swamp. It came from 14 points down in the fourth quarter to top South Carolina, beating a Steve Spurrier-coached team for just the second time ever.
Times were good in the Bluegrass, and it wasn’t even basketball season yet.
But then the dreaded “second season” arrived.
Kentucky failed six straight times to clinch bowl eligibility, closing the year on an epic losing streak involving five double-digit losses and three 30-point losses. It allowed opponents to score at least 40 points five times and allowed them to score at least 50 points twice. It lost to in-state rival Louisville for the fourth year in a row, this time falling against the Cardinals’ third-string quarterback.
Not only did all of that happen in the same roller coaster campaign, but the good and the bad hardly even overlapped. Kentucky’s first-half successes were so distinctly separated from its second-half failures that it seems impossible the same team could have achieved both feats in the same three-month span.
But that’s exactly what Kentucky did in 2014, leaving fans dazed and confused as they try to make sense of it all.
Ultimately, it all begs one simple question: Was Kentucky’s 2014 season a success?
The answer is a resounding “yes.”
A colleague of mine, the incredibly wise Jon Cooper, put it best.
If I was in a coma for 15 weeks and woke up today to see Kentucky had finished the season 5-7, I’d consider it a success for the program.
He makes a great point. If you didn’t experience the highs and the lows of the wacky 2014 season, you’d take a look at the 5-7 record and immediately agree it represents a step in the right direction for a Kentucky program building from scratch in the aftermath of the failed Joker Phillips era.
But that argument can be easily countered by reminders of the 0-6 finish, the blowout losses and the repeated failures to take the step to bowl eligibility.
At the end of the day, it’s not the 5-7 record that constitutes a successful season, but rather the unquantifiable strides this program made on the field that should set it up for a slew of bowl berths in the coming years.
Freshmen like Boom Williams and Dorian Baker, and juco transfers like Ryan Flannigan and A.J. Stamps are what made Kentucky’s season a success. The Cats integrated a ton of new talent in a short amount of time this season, and although it did not amount to a sixth win, it did amount to a significant rise in win total as well as in talent on the field.
The Cats won’t lose much from this year’s team beyond superstar defensive end Bud Dupree, who will be making tackles on Sundays this time next year. They’ll return most of their key contributors on both sides of the ball, and those players will be stronger, smarter, more experienced and more disciplined next year than they were this year.
They’ve learned what it takes to win in the SEC (re: the comeback against South Carolina) and they’ve learned how it feels to lose (re: the six-game losing streak). Those are invaluable lessons every college star must learn, and Kentucky’s collective core learned those lessons together this season. That will only stand to benefit the team next season.
Mark Stoops grew as a successful coach as well. Now two years into his tenure at Kentucky, he’s led the program to steady growth on the field and to rapid growth on the recruiting trail. His five-win campaign is proof that his recruits not only have a chance to earn playing time right away, but that the Wildcats are a team trending positively in a wide open SEC East.
So yes, Kentucky’s season was absolutely a success, even in the wake of six straight losses and a missed postseason opportunity. If you measure success in terms of wins and losses, the Cats’ season was both successful and unsuccessful all at once. That gives me a headache to even think about, so let’s not.
If you measure success in terms of growth, however, Kentucky was among the most successful teams in the SEC this season. The Wildcats fell short of a great opportunity, but they still improved from 2012-13. Power programs like Florida and South Carolina wish they could say the same.
Fans have every right to be disappointed in how the season ended. A bowl berth would have been tremendous for Kentucky, and for a while there it looked like a realistic expectation. But don’t let the hot start or the ice-cold finish deter you from the real story of the 2014 season — a story of growth.
Amid the good, the bad and the ugly, this Kentucky team grew up right before our very eyes. The hardest part is over. The wins are coming.
A former newspaper reporter who has roamed the southeastern United States for years covering football and eating way too many barbecue ribs, if there is such a thing.
