Kentucky has been one of the best stories of this young college football season, from snapping its 31-game losing streak against Florida to jumping into the AP Top 25 after convincingly upsetting then-No. 14 Mississippi State last Saturday.
Yet the No. 17 Wildcats still opened as 1-point underdogs for this week’s home game against South Carolina, prompting a question during Stoops’ weekly press conference about the program’s perception relative to its ranking. When asked Tuesday if he cares “about that stuff,” Stoops made no bones about it:
“I don’t care. I think we were two-touchdown ‘dogs last week, weren’t we? So, I don’t know. We’re just going to go about our business and do the best we can. As far as the recognition and all that, I’m good with it because the players have worked hard. They’ve earned it. That’s fine, but it cannot distract from us.
“It should not and will not, but they do deserve to get some recognition because they’ve put a lot of time in. It’s about the production that they’ve done this year. They didn’t get that in the preseason, so they earned that through the work that they’ve done.”
Stoops clearly doesn’t want the early run of success to affect his players. We’ll see how Kentucky (4-0, 2-0 SEC) handles its first top-25 ranking since 2007 when it hosts South Carolina (2-1, 1-1) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Marcus covers SEC football for Saturday Down South.
