In evaluating sports teams, I tend to subscribe to the Bill Parcells no-excuses edict: You are what your record says you are.
The 2020 Kentucky Wildcats football team will take a 3-6 record into its regular-season finale Saturday at 7:30 p.m. vs. SEC East foe South Carolina (2-7).
Even against a 10-game, all-SEC schedule, it seemed reasonable to expect better from a veteran Kentucky roster that entered this season riding a string of four straight winning years.
Yet even without factoring in all that Mark Stoops and the 2020 Cats have endured off the field — the coronavirus pandemic; the debilitating medical crisis that befell Chris Oats; the death of John Schlarman — part of me wonders if we aren't judging the 2020 UK football season too severely.
Consider: If UK can beat South Carolina, it will finish with at least four SEC victories for the fourth season in the past five years.
A charter member of the Southeastern Conference, Kentucky has never previously had a five-season stretch in which it won at least four league games four times.
Had COVID-19 not denied Kentucky the chance to play its original 2020 schedule, UK may have already put the wraps on an 8-4 regular season — which would have been the second-most-successful UK regular season since 1977.
The Cats likely would have handled non-conference foes Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Eastern Illinois and would, I think, have been about 60-40, maybe 65-35, on the probability scale to beat archrival Louisville for a third straight season.
Since Kentucky lost to both of the post-COVID-19 additions the SEC made to its schedule, Mississippi and Alabama, it is not unreasonable to think the Cats could have gotten to four SEC wins against the normal eight-game league schedule.
An eight-win year that included road victories over rivals Tennessee (who UK crushed 34-7 Oct. 17) and Louisville and four SEC victories would have substantially altered the perceptions of the 2020 Wildcats.
Alas, alternate-history hypotheticals are not how big-time college sports programs are judged.
Facts are, Kentucky is assured of its first losing season since 2015.
The Wildcats offense has been mired in a dispiriting slog, having failed to reach 300 total yards in six of nine games and failing to score more than one offensive touchdown in four of the five most recent contests.
"Some of the football that we have put out there is unacceptable and that is my job as the head coach to look at that, address it and improve," Stoops said Monday during his weekly video news conference. "I don't want to get into specifics. There is no time for pointing fingers and doing all of that right now.
"I have to continue to move the program forward and there is no doubt in my mind that I have to continue to look at all things and improve and get better and I will certainly do that after this week."
If the Cats beat South Carolina, Stoops (47-50 in eight seasons) will pass Fran Curci (47-51-3 from 1973-81) as the second-winningest coach in Kentucky football history.
Yet the Kentucky football coaching past says Stoops is now in a precarious position. At UK, it has proven all but impossible for a head man to regain momentum once his program loses steam.
Curci had back-to-back seasons of 9-3 and 10-1 in his fourth and fifth years as Kentucky coach, then never had another winning season before being fired after his ninth year.
Jerry Claiborne (41-46-3 from 1982-89) took Kentucky to consecutive bowls in his second and third seasons, but never got UK back to the postseason in five more years.
Bill Curry (26-52 from 1990-96) had UK bowling in his fourth season — then went 9-24 over the following three years and got fired.
Hal Mumme (20-26 from 1997-2000) took the Cats to bowls in his second and third seasons, only to see his program collapse into a 2-9, scandal-consumed mess.
Rich Brooks (39-47 from 2003-2009) led Kentucky to four straight winning seasons in his final four years, then had the sagacity to retire before facing the dreaded program dip.
Now, there are viable reasons to believe Stoops can recapture lost program momentum where (many of) his predecessors could not.
Kentucky's enhanced financial investment in high-level football facilities in the past decade and the out-of-state recruiting reach of Stoops and his staff are two of those reasons.
Whatever happens against South Carolina, job one for Stoops in the offseason is to re-conceptualize the Kentucky offense — especially the passing attack.
"Ultimately, it comes down to me and getting everybody to play together and complement each other as a team," Stoops says. "We are not dynamic enough on any one side to just take over a game. We need to play well together and we haven't done that.
"That's up to me to go back and find the right recipe to help us win games because, obviously, this year it did not work. And that is on me as the head coach."
