Mark Stoops is giving Kentucky exactly what he promised nine years ago

The logical place to start is here: How did Kentucky win that football game?

Mark Stoops and the troops traveled south for their SEC road opener Saturday night and emphatically checked the top box on the “how to lose at football” checklist.

Not once, not twice, not thrice but four times UK put the ball on the Williams-Brice Stadium turf.

By game’s end, host South Carolina had collected three turnovers — two fumble recoveries and an interception — while Kentucky had forced exactly no TOs.

Yet, defying football logic, UK won a road game in the Southeastern Conference with a turnover tally of minus-3.

Continuing its recent mastery over South Carolina, Kentucky (4-0, 2-0 SEC) pulled out a 16-10 win over the host Gamecocks (2-2, 0-2 SEC) before an announced crowd of 77,559.

UK won because its defense flat refused to allow the Cats to lose.

Kentucky stopped the hosts three times on fourth-down plays in Wildcats territory. The Cats did not surrender a single point after those three turnovers.

Winning in such a manner was “a real credit to our defense,” Stoops said afterward. “I love the way our team fought.”

It was Kentucky’s seventh victory over SEC East-rival South Carolina in the past eight meetings. It moved Stoops (26-42) past Fran Curci (25-30) as the all-time Kentucky coaching leader in SEC victories.

That Kentucky will carry an unblemished record into Saturday’s meeting with No. 11 Florida owes to the fact that Stoops has followed through on one of the vows he made when UK hired the former Florida State defensive coordinator nine years ago as its head coach.

Stoops has built a stout defensive culture at a school that had not consistently had one since the Jerry Claiborne coaching era in the 1980s.

Kentucky defensive resilience was on display everywhere Saturday night.

In the first half, with UK holding a 7-0 lead, the Wildcats “D” snuffed out a South Carolina drive when DeAndre Square and Marquan McCall combined to stop Gamecocks running back Kevin Harris for no gain on fourth-and-1 from the Cats 47.

That was only a warm-up for the crises the Kentucky defenders would have to surmount in half two.

With Kentucky clinging to a 13-7 lead, a Josh Ali fumble gave the Gamecocks the ball at the Cats’ 40-yard line with 1:32 left in the third quarter.

Yet, aided by a South Carolina holding penalty, UK forced an incomplete Luke Doty pass on fourth-and-4 from the Kentucky 24 with 13:33 left in the game.

Alas, Kentucky was not out of self-inflicted danger.

Another Ali fumble gave South Carolina the ball again, this time at the UK 47 with 11:32 left.

But on fourth-and-3 from the Kentucky 40, Wildcats safety Jalen Geiger — a product of Columbia, S.C. — broke up a pass intended for Dakereon Joyner with 9:43 left.

“We always have the mentality, if sudden change happens, we always say ‘Good,’” said Square, UK’s senior linebacker. “It’s the mentality our whole defense has. (Defending after a turnover) is not a bad thing. We get to go out there and show our talent.”

According to his Rivals.com recruiting profile, the 6-foot-1, 200-pound Geiger had scholarship offers from Power Five schools such as Boston College, North Carolina, Rutgers and Virginia, in addition to UK.

What the Spring Valley High School product did not have was an offer from hometown South Carolina.

On what became the Gamecocks’ final offensive drive of the game, the sophomore again showed the home folks what they missed when he caught Harris for a 6-yard loss on a swing pass on a first-and-10 play from the UK 34.

“I was proud of the way he played tonight,” Square said of Geiger.

There were many defensive heroes for Kentucky. It was Square who led the Cats with eight tackles, including five solo stops. Nose tackle McCall seemed an unusually disruptive force in the middle. Defensive coordinator Brad White dialed up some timely blitzes that helped keep Doty uncomfortable.

Looking forward, with games against No. 11 Florida, LSU and at No. 2 Georgia immediately ahead, one would surmise that Kentucky has gone as far as it can playing with maximum ball insecurity.

Being minus-9 on the season in turnover margin — which UK now is — yet 4-0 are two things that do not naturally go together.

A pessimist will look at a team that is four contests into its season and has been turning the ball over consistently and say UK has already revealed its true identity.

An optimist will say Kentucky has gotten its turnovers out of its system and things should start to even out moving forward.

What we can say with certainty is there were many seasons in recent decades when UK would not have had the defensive gumption to go on the road in the SEC and win a game in which the Cats were minus-three in the turnover ledger.

It happened Saturday night because Stoops has kept his word about building a winning defensive culture at Kentucky.

“I really can’t say enough,” Mark Stoops said, “about (the UK defense) gutting it out.”

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