I projected Kentucky to have a better football season in 2020 than the 3-5 record the Wildcats have so far produced.
With Mark Stoops' program entering this year with a veteran team and carrying the positive momentum yielded by a combined 18 wins in the prior two seasons, I was not expecting the 2020 Cats to lose to two teams, Mississippi and Missouri, with first-year head coaches.
Nor would I have believed UK would be on the wrong end of a 60-point beat down like the 63-3 shellacking the Cats absorbed Saturday at No. 1 Alabama.
Now, Kentucky must go on the road again to face another top-10 team with a high-octane offense when the Wildcats visit No. 6 Florida on Saturday at noon.
"We definitely need to hit the reset button," UK's Stoops said Monday during his weekly video news conference. "There were things out of our control last week, but absolutely no excuses. As far as our players' mentality, we have to reset and get back to playing the way we are capable of."
The question on the floor today: In the midst of what has so far been a disappointing Kentucky season, to what degree should we give Stoops and troops a mulligan because they have endured so much off-the-field adversity?
UK's tribulations in 2020 have been myriad.
Before the season, Kentucky lost perhaps its most talented defensive player, linebacker Chris Oats, to a severe, still publicly undisclosed, medical condition.
Two Thursdays ago, respected offensive line coach John Schlarman's brave, two-year battle against cancer ended with his death.
Since then, UK has played twice — once, two days after Schlarman's passing; the second game, five days after his memorial service.
"John Schlarman was close to everybody on this team," Stoops said. "I think our team did the best it could to respond to difficult times."
Meanwhile, fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, which has made life vexing for football teams nationwide, has seemed to consistently cut against Kentucky.
COVID-19 outbreaks at other schools led to SEC schedule shuffling that made three Kentucky games — at Missouri, Georgia and at Alabama — more difficult for the Wildcats by forcing UK to face teams coming off open dates.
Last Saturday, Kentucky played at Alabama after having lost a core of key players — standout running back Christopher Rodriguez; starting tight end Justin Rigg; emerging star linebacker Jamin Davis; and All-America punter Max Duffy, among them — to apparent COVID-19-related issues.
"We practice all week with certain players and find out on Friday they can't play," Stoops said. "It's difficult."
Stoops also said Monday that Kentucky has been down "two to three offensive coaches" for various health-related reasons since its win at Tennessee on Oct. 17.
Said Stoops: "I don't have coaches, I mean, whatever. I don't even want to say it. Because I don't want anybody attacking me for (making) excuses."
This, of course, is a testing season for everyone.
Just in the SEC, Mississippi State reportedly played at Georgia — and played competitively — Saturday with only 49 available players.
Arkansas was down six defensive players last week in its narrow loss to LSU.
Beset by player opt-outs and subsequent coronavirus outbreaks, Vanderbilt has been fighting to stay above the SEC's COVID-season viability standard of 53 available scholarship players all year.
So it's tough all over.
Nevertheless, any fair-minded evaluation of the Kentucky season has to factor in the mitigating circumstances the Wildcats have faced.
Alas, the perceptions of college football programs are not always formed on fairness or rationality.
You can bet that cut-throat, rival recruiters will make ample use of Kentucky having lost a game to a conference rival by 60 points.
Big picture, the problem for Stoops is that, barring a stunning upset at The Swamp on Saturday, UK is going to suffer a losing season with a veteran team in a year where the Wildcats were thought capable of producing better.
Unless much of Kentucky's senior class unexpectedly chooses to take advantage of the NCAA's free season of COVID-19 eligibility and returns for another year of college football in 2021, UK will be re-tooling next season.
For various reasons, there is a viable chance that the Stoops era will prove different, but there is not ample history of Kentucky football coaching regimes regaining positive program momentum once it has been lost.
In the short run, this most trying of UK football seasons still has two games left with South Carolina slated to visit Kroger Field the week after UK's trip to Florida.
"The players, I do feel for them. They have had to deal with a lot, no question," Stoops said of the 2020 Wildcats. "But it is what it is. No excuses. We need to play better."
