Winning Ugly Never Looked So Beautiful

(NORMAN, Okla.) — “Statistics are for losers,” Kentucky head football coach Will Stein said after his team stunk it up for much of the game against Oklahoma on Saturday.

Too many punts. Not enough offense. A few questionable decisions. And somehow his Wildcats squeaked out another improbable 21-13 road victory over a perennial football blueblood.

Welcome to the Will Stein era, where winning ugly has become a thing of beauty and Kentucky fans are discovering the unfamiliar luxury of losing the battle but winning the war.

I've been covering Kentucky football long enough to remember when the Wildcats needed everything to go right to pull off an upset. The opposing quarterback had to have a bad night, the officials had to cooperate, and the football gods had to be sufficiently distracted. Sometimes it helped if the other team's bus broke down.

Against Oklahoma, Kentucky didn't need perfection. It didn't even need a particularly attractive performance. It needed a defense that refused to surrender, an offense that eventually remembered how to move the football, and a coach whose players apparently believe in him even when his decisions don't work out.

Afterward, Stein acknowledged that he had second thoughts about a fourth-down decision that failed to produce points. In hindsight, he wondered whether taking the field goal might have been the better choice.

But what happened when the offense came off the field?

According to Stein, his players told him, "Coach, I got your back."

That’s quite a revelation. A first-year head coach makes a questionable decision in a hostile SEC stadium. Instead of finger-pointing or hanging their heads, his players rally around him.

I'm not sure that's something you can manufacture with motivational posters and a few team-building exercises. You can put Brotherhood on every locker-room wall in America, but sooner or later somebody has to demonstrate what it means.

Kentucky's defense did exactly that.

Jordan Castell seemed to be everywhere, including the end zone after an interception return. Asked whether he considered simply going down after making the pick, Castell dismissed the suggestion. He saw green grass and decided to take his chances.

Marquise Humphrey-Grace, meanwhile, explained that the defensive front had been frustrated by repeatedly getting close to opposing quarterbacks without finishing the job. Against Oklahoma, the pressure finally produced results.

And the offense? Kenny Minchey said the breakthrough came from running plays the players were comfortable with, getting the ball into space, and concentrating on individual assignments.

Willie Rodriguez offered another glimpse into this team's mentality. He talked about the energy Kentucky draws from playing in hostile environments, with tens of thousands of people hoping for the Wildcats' demise. Kentucky is now apparently one of those teams that enjoys going into somebody else's stadium and ruining the evening. Remember when merely surviving those trips without embarrassment or injury was considered progress.

Perhaps the most interesting exchange of the evening came when I asked Stein a question that had been rattling around in my mind.

Despite their newfound national relevance, Stein keeps insisting that Kentucky has enormous room for improvement. Fair enough. But after another significant road victory, I wanted to know whether all this unexpected success had changed his own perception of the team's ceiling.

In other words, Coach, are you starting to believe this bunch might be capable of something even bigger than you originally imagined?

Stein didn't take the bait.

Instead, he talked about Vanderbilt coming to Lexington, the importance of improving, and the dangers of relaxing for even a minute in the SEC.

By not answering my question, he provided something even more revealing.

Kentucky fans are already looking toward the rankings, postseason possibilities, and whatever improbable destination this season might hold. Stein apparently refuses to look beyond the next practice. He's not interested in discussing the team’s ceiling because he's too busy worrying about its foundation.

I suppose that's why he's coaching football and I'm sitting in the press box eating complimentary cookies while trying to figure out how high the darn ceiling actually is.

Regardless, something feels different about this Kentucky team than the others that have had success over the years. They’ve discovered how to win when things go wrong. They can survive mistakes. They can endure offensive struggles. They can overcome questionable decisions. And when their coach needs somebody to pick him up, they apparently have his back.

For Kentucky football fans accustomed to waiting for the other shoe to drop, that's a strange new world.

I'm not ready to declare how high the Wildcats can climb. But I am beginning to understand why Will Stein doesn't want to talk about their ceiling.

He's got another game to win.

And apparently, it doesn't have to be pretty.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. He currently serves as a columnist for Nolan Group Media and invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. His latest book is Whining for Posterity, available on Amazon.