Since Kentucky fell to Georgia in Week 3, the conversation has been about a key decision from Mark Stoops. The Wildcats had a 4th-and-8 while trailing 13-12, and they opted to punt instead of go for it.

Stoops offered a passionate defense during his press conference Monday. But when asked about how the opponent factored into his decision-making, the Mountain West caught a slight stray.

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Stoops was making a comparison to the amount of talent Georgia has when talking about the situation. He made it clear he didn’t mean anything toward the Mountain West, but was just trying to put things in perspective.

“It gets down to the situation,” Stoops said. “Everything’s different. No disrespect at all – I don’t mean this in any way – but we are playing Georgia, you know what I mean? Not somebody in the Mountain West. So there’s a difference there. You’ve just got to know what the situation is.”

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Kentucky had 4th-and-8 from the UGA 47-yard line, but opted to punt and play for field position. The Bulldogs took 2:49 off the clock on the ensuing possession, and the Wildcats’ last drive needed just 17 yards in nine seconds.

Mark Stoops: ‘We got to that point by playing field position’

Afterward, plenty of questions came up about Stoops’ decision not to go for it. A false start penalty then pushed UK back five more yards, as well. But he had a strong defense of his decision, pointing out the field position game is what had the Wildcats in that position in the first place.

“How many people are saying, ‘Hey, Coach Stoops, you’re dumb. We had the ball on the plus-47, why didn’t you just pound it three more times? We’re moving the ball really good against a good defense. What if we’d have got those three instead of gotten sacked, instead of gotten sack-fumbled and went all the way back to the 22 on the other side?’” Stoops said. “Think about that swing. Nobody talks about that, do they?

“When I had the ball three times around the same zone and went negative, negative and on second down, damn near had a fumble. Third down, damn near had a fumble. We got to that point by playing field position and playing defense. We had a chance to win that game just the way we played it – we came up a play or two short. I stand by that.”

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