Kelvin Joseph celebrated his interception return for a touchdown at Tennessee. (SEC Photo)
In the last two games Kentucky’s defense has been the most dominant it has been during Mark Stoops’ eight years at UK. The Wildcats did not give up a score to Mississippi State — the only points the Bulldogs had came on a safety — and allowed just one touchdown against Tennessee.
Even better, the Wildcats have picked off nine passes the last two games and returned three of them for touchdowns.
No wonder Lexington Herald-Leader writer Josh Moore asked Stoops after the Tennessee win if this could become his best UK defense, even better than the one in 2018 that featured national defensive player of the year Josh Allen.
“Easy, Josh, easy. We can’t let them read these things,” Stoops joked after Moore’s question.
Nothing like a 34-7 win at Tennessee, a place UK had not won since 1984, to bring out the jovial side of Stoops.
“Got to stay hungry and go back to work,” Stoops said. “We are going to Missouri and they have shown signs of life and a creative offense.
“We have got to stay in the moment. Get ahead of yourself and bad things happen.”
Stoops would acknowledge that after a 42-41 overtime loss to Ole Miss that UK’s defense responded the right way.
“They are getting better,” he said. “We just need to put it all together. We feel like we can have a pretty good team. We are playing good defense, special teams have been and the offense is showing signs.”
