KENTUCKY VS. AUBURN

KROGER FIELD – LEXINGTON, KY.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2024

POSTGAME QUOTES

KENTUCKY HEAD COACH MARK STOOPS

MARK STOOPS: Alright. I really don’t have much to say. You know, just hit the repeat button. I think you all get tired of hearing the same thing. It’s more of the same. They need to finish drives, they need to get to the end zone. They need to play better in each phase of the game. Just got beat. Bottom line, we got beat. We didn’t play good enough in any phase to win and that’s discouraging. But we have to respond. Again, I’ve told the players all week. Just like Auburn. They have been in a tough situation and they responded and came in here and played extremely tough and didn’t surprise me that they were going to play hard. We just have to match that and we have to get back to playing as good as we can. We’ve got to try to get some guys healthy and get better and look at all options to put our team in a better position to play better next week.

Q Mark. In those early season losses. You guys were still moving the ball and getting first downs. Only 13 tonight, Auburn gets 20. So, what happened to the offense to just not move the ball?

MARK STOOPS: There is no excuse. We got beat. They covered us up and played very aggressive. You know, give credit to them. Hugh came in here and played very good offensively. Moved the ball as good against us as anybody I can remember in a while, anyway. They moved it very well defensively. DJ Durkin is a Youngstown guy and I’ve known DJ for a very long time and he’s done a really good job but they were very aggressive and in our face and pressuring us and we didn’t respond very well. Actually, early on Dane made a couple of great catches and we did get a 10 point lead but after that they kind of stymied us.

Q Mark. Was there something different or some health situation?

MARK STOOPS: No health situation. Just wanted to get a good look at Gavin and see if he can help us move the ball.

1. How do you think Gavin played?

MARK STOOPS: I have to look at it. It’s not just on Gavin, as you know. It’s what was out there. Did he miss anything? In real time it was just a tough frustrating game. So, we will look at the film and see.

Q Mark. You talked about them moving the ball as well as anybody all year. Early in the season you held some really good offenses. What do you think that has happened with the defense?

MARK STOOPS: You know, we just got to play better. It is what it is. I think we are getting a little bit worn down but, I don’t want to make any excuses.

Q Can it be demoralizing for a defense when the offense isn’t really helping that much?

MARK STOOPS: I don’t think that’s it. I think more – we are more affected by the bodies that we have and the health that we are in. You know, I don’t want to sit here and make excuses. It’s real life and everybody in this league is probably beat up right now and I have to do a better job of making sure we have the depth that we need to compete.

Q The offense after JP’s interception –?

MARK STOOPS: It’s certainly not good. I don’t know what order it was in. But yeah, that wasn’t a good possession. I don’t know if that was the third possession of the game or not but I know we moved it on the first two and then after that we didn’t move it very good.

Q Mark. You said explore options. Are you going to throw the quarterback competition open?

MARK STOOPS: I don’t want any headlines on that. Gavin has been playing all year. We had – we planned on putting him in the third series of the game. But we moved the ball very well in the first two. Right? So. If I put him in in the first series of the game, but in hindsight it would have ran out anyway but you’d be asking me why in the world did I take him out when we were moving the ball. You know what I’m saying? I think we judge that and say we are moving the ball pretty good, let’s stick with what is going right. We went three and out and you know, that’s it.

Q When he comes in and its three and out back to back and a seven point game and you stick with him and that leads to questions to whether you make the quarterback switch there.

MARK STOOPS: I don’t know, I don’t need that to dominate the headlines. We are not playing very well. It’s never on one person. You know, so. If it is Gavin or if it’s Brock, whoever it is. They can only do so much. It is a team effort. I know everybody likes to concentrate on the quarterback position. And I know it’s a story. Bottom line is we are not playing winning football on the offensive side. And I would rather that be the headline then on any one person.

Q Mark. Give me an update on Darrion?

MARK STOOPS: He’s got an ankle injury.

Q On that note before he got injured – how big of a play was that?

MARK STOOPS: That was a very big play for him to limp over and we were yelling at him too. Players have a lot on their plate and they are out there playing hard and he gets a sack and he’s injured but the awareness that they are out of timeouts but it doesn’t always happen that way and it was huge that he got back and got lined up and the time expired.

Q Mark. You talked about your team responding. How you handle the – trying to keep the morale of the team up with the double losses stacking up here? Two top teams away.

MARK STOOPS: Again, it’s like that every week. It’s just brutal. It’s hard. It’s tough. It’s a tough league. We have to man up. Bottom line. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Our players know that and they got to get back to work and we have do a better job. I told them in there, it’s on me. And I’ve got to do a better job. We’ve got to get them in a better position to play better. We’ve

got to, you know, we just all have to do a better job. Obviously, it starts with me and I know people get tired of hearing that but we are not playing winning football right now.

Q Was there ever an instinct to put Brock back in the game in that second half or was you like Gavin is doing the whole second half?

MARK STOOPS: Really, there was not a lot of possession in the way they were moving the ball. We were not moving it very well; it went relatively fast. I think at that point we did get it down to the two and once again we can’t punch it in. We got an opportunity there to cut it to a one score game. And we failed.

Q Mark. The second half with Auburn when that first position it looks like they really took care of– kind of set the tone for the second half the way they had the offense roll.

MARK STOOPS: You know, they did a nice job. We were a little of balance all night, I think. You know, we can play better than we did. And again, you have to give them the credit for a lot of the good. They moved us. They have a back that makes you miss. They ran for an awful lot of yards. So – it’s both credit them and we need to do better.

Q You eliminated the running back tonight – how – do you feel like you are trying to emphasize to those guys?

MARK STOOPS: I think it’s fair. We tried to have a good game plan with what we had. It is what it is.

Q: [INAUDIBLE]

MARK STOOPS: I thought they did a decent job. I thought they played really good upfront. They kind of controlled the game with their front.

Q Going down to the two again. What is your message to your team?

MARK STOOPS: We’ve got to look at what we are doing. We got to look at how we are playing. We got to look at all options. You can’t point fingers. We’ve got to find some solutions, clearly. It’s very

frustrating. You know, there’s no excuses. There’s nothing I’m going to say that’s the right answer. We’ve got to do a better job. Right?

KENTUCKY PLAYERS

#2, Gavin Wimsatt, QB

On being frustrated after plays…

“It’s very frustrating, especially, you know, you get to the 2-yard line and don’t get in, don’t score the ball, so it’s very tough especially in the situation we’re in, but you just got to learn from it, get better.”

On getting more snaps …
“I mean, it was part of the plan but, I mean halftime we went in and just said we were going to go with me, and I was ready to roll, you know Brock, great guy, selfless, and you know he’s for whatever is best for the team, and me, me as well, whether that’s coming in, going.”

On the redzone issues …
“Tough to say right now, I’d say we just have to watch film after this and just really evaluate ourselves and see what we think we can fix.”

#6, JQ Hardaway, G

On the mood in the locker room after another tough game…

“You know you’re always down after a loss man. We ready to get back Monday and get back to work.”

On how frustrating it is to see another player run for almost 300 yards …

“Very frustrating, but that’s on us. We got to do a better job. We got to execute the game plan.”

On how to stop both big passes and big runs …

“We just got to do our job and execute. I feel like if everybody does their job, everybody does what coach adds up to do then we’d be in a pretty good position, but you try to do your own things, then those kind of things happen.”

On not letting it spiral out of control …

“Look at yourself in the mirror, look at yourself in the mirror. Find out what you can do better, because everybody can do something. Don’t just try to point your finger to the next guy. You know, I’m saying just stand, stay in a hole, man. Like it is rowdy it is, you know, not going our way, but if we all just continue to go to work and believe in each other I believe positive things will come.”

AUBURN HEAD COACH HUGH FREEZE

Opening Statement… 

“Man, just thank the good Lord. We’ve obviously had our chances to win a lot of football games this year for whatever reason a lack of confidence or not making the right call or not making the right play or things just haven’t gone our way. And tonight, our kids found a way to win, and I just couldn’t be happier for them, for the Auburn family – we have the greatest fanbase, the greatest fans, the greatest administration. Everybody is so supportive even in the year where it’s been disappointing at times – just couldn’t be more thankful. Then our kids and staff they just keep coming to work. [They] had a great chance to just lay down tonight, down 10-0 on the road there’s no quit in them and just really, really proud of everyone’s effort tonight. Just a tough place to play and a really good defensive football team – and I thought our kids handled everything really well.”

On what was different about the preparation for tonight’s game…

“The only thing really that was different was Friday, you know, I wasn’t in the team meetings in the hotel Friday night. I told our football administrator we might need to do that every Saturday. Just whatever works, I mean, that’s the only thing that was different. I got here today for all of our meetings, so it would’ve been miserable for everybody if I would’ve tried to travel yesterday with them. But nothing was different besides I missed Friday’s meetings.”

On how the defense played…

“Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because I was on the headset, you know I don’t say much, I try not to, I was just like, ‘man, make them earn everything and milk this clock as much as you can.’ Not only did they do that but end up getting a stop with a pick. Cause you know, we were man coverage, and he motioned all the way over, all the way back. You see it stopped some, but to get there and pick it, it was a pretty phenomenal effort.”

On the importance of confidence and the win…

“Just to see them happy and their continuous hard work to be gratified, the feeling of an SEC win on the road. Particularly, when you go through the type of losses we’ve had, you know, I saw a stat earlier this week that was kind of like, one of the craziest metrics I’ve ever seen. Of seven teams that are averaging over six and a half yards a carry, and allowing five yards or less on defense, and we’re one of those seven. The combined record of the other six is 36-4. So, whether it’s been the lack of confidence or us not believing in ourselves because of our youth enough, and obviously turnovers played a role in some of those. But the hope is, you come and win one on the road that it grows your confidence for sure cause, it’s not gonna get any easier with the teams we’re playing. So, we’re gonna need that confidence moving forward.”

On Kentucky not giving up a ton of rushing yards and his thoughts on Jarquez (Hunter) 

“We came out and wanted to throw it early and obviously tried and then people haven’t run it on them – outside of the Florida game no one [has]. [There] are some good football teams that they’ve really stopped rushing the football so I think it speaks highly of our O-line, our running backs, our tight ends and our coaching staff Jake (Thornton) and Ben (Aigamaua) who did a good job putting a really good plan together in the run game and it was good to see those running backs running hard too. It was Jarquez, I don’t know 270 or something – it’s a phenomenal nigh and credit goes to the guys up front and obviously the way he ran it. Along with the other tail backs too Damari (Alston) had some good runs also.”

AUBURN PLAYERS

#12, Dorian Mausi, LB

On the message at halftime …

“Continue to go out there and fight, we had such a good second quarter and we wanted to keep that momentum going into the next half”

On the physicality of the game …

“Kentucky is a physical team, Coach made sure to emphasize that when we were preparing for this game. We knew coming in that it was going to be a dirty physical game, we wanted to make sure we were suited up correctly, had our chin straps tightened and just ready to play.”

On how this will help the team’s momentum …

“Never too high, never too low. We need to get back to it, were happy now, but there are a-lot of things that we need to go clean up on in film. For these future games on the road, the biggest thing is to execute, execute, execute. Right from the start we need to be clean and execute, that first drive sets the momentum and tempo for the entire game”

#23, Jay Crawford, CB

On his first career interception …

“It felt amazing. It was a cover two look play, so I just had to get the ball lifted, then sunk back a little bit, and it came right to me. I’m feeling good about it and proud about that play.”

On how they shifted momentum …

“Just go out there, leave no mistake, play with our hearts and leave everything on the field no matter what.”

On how this will help the team’s momentum …

“We just won it on the road, I feel like now we’ve finally gotten things rolling and we need to continue to go out there, keep playing, and keep fighting.”

#27, Jarquez Hunter, RB

On his impressive game …

“To be honest I got tired of losing. I told Coach we’re going to find a way to win this game this week. It don’t matter how we do it or how it gets done, we’re just going to find a way. I try to play my hardest for my teammates and my coaches. I try and give them my all every play I got. I try to take advantage of the opportunities that I got today. I tried to wear them out.”

On being patient …

“Yeah, that’s the big key of the run game. You got to let the blocks develop that the O-line and tight ends give you. You can’t be too fast to hit the hole because you can be more patient and let it develop, and you can have a big crease.”

On how the team bounced back …

“I felt like we did a great job as a team by not getting down on ourselves like we have in the past. I felt like we just kept going out there and competing. I mean you look at the end result, we won the game when you don’t give up on yourself at the beginning. I mean, it’s always adversity at the beginning, I messed up on a lot of plays at the beginning. You might not see it, but I did and you just have to let it go and just play the next play. You can’t let that one play beat you. You have to go out there and dominate.”