The scoreboard may have only read 20-10, but outside of a beating at the hands of eventual national champion Alabama, no game on Kentucky's schedule last season felt quite as lopsided as the Wildcats' loss to Missouri.
"It felt like 40," Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops of the final margin during Monday's press conference to preview a key early-season rematch between the Cats and Tigers this week at Kroger Field.
"Eli (Drinkwitz) and I have built a friendship, and I like him," the UK boss continued on his Missouri counterpart, "but he kicked our butt. He kicked our butt. I'm not going to forget. That's on my mind. He had his team more prepared than I did."
On that day in Columbia, the Tigers took out five years of frustration against the Cats, snapping a frustrating losing skid to their SEC East rivals. They ran for 220 yards. They threw for 201. They converted half of their third-down snaps and held the ball for 43 minutes and 10 seconds. Mizzou ran an eye-popping 92 plays, while UK ran just 36.
At one point in the second half of the game, a UK defender found himself trapped among a swarming crowd of players on the Missouri sideline, and the Tigers let him know just how bad they were laying it to the Cats.
It's an image that has stuck with Kentucky, and it may have been the most uncharacteristic game of the season for the Cats, who were feeling pretty good about themselves coming off a dominant road win at Tennessee and possibly looking ahead to a showdown with Georgia the following week.
"I didn't like the way we were... ," said Stoops, struggling to find the words to match his lingering frustration. "You know, they played more physical than us a year ago, and that is uncharacteristic. I don't particularly like that, so we need to be much more physical this year.
"I sense they were much more prepared to play last year than we were, and that's on me. I can promise you that's not going to happen again."
While Kentucky (1-0) is coming off a 45-10 blowout of Louisiana Monroe in the season opener, Missouri (1-0) was pushed a little harder in a 34-24 win over Central Michigan.
The Cats, who passed for 419 yards and four touchdowns in the debut of new offensive coordinator Liam Coen and transfer quarterback Will Levis, will face a Tigers defense that surrendered 475 total yards (including 301 through the air) in Week 1 to a MAC opponent but also tallied nine sacks.
Missouri is under the direction of a new defensive coordinator, Steve Wilks, who has spent 15 years in the NFL. His approach can lead to both big plays behind the line of scrimmage and big opportunities in the passing game.
"They're aggressive," Stoops said. "They were a heavy dose of man coverage in this first game... a bunch of guys at the line of scrimmage, so we're going to have to win some one-on-ones, that's for sure. You have to be physical and win some one-on-one battles. Very aggressive defense. Very much crowding the line of scrimmage."
