When you make promises, make sure you can keep them

At Mark Stoops' Monday press conference the Kentucky head coach made a strong statement. He made a guarantee.

But is it a promise he and his team will be able to keep?

Mark Stoops is in a lose-lose position when he speaks to the media and the public. Really, it's a lose-lose-lose-lose position. Insert the word "lose" as many times as you want. I say that with some sympathy for Stoops. The point is, as I wrote after the Southern Miss game in assessing the state of the program, there is nothing Mark Stoops can say that will make things any better. Nothing at all.

The only solution is to speak exactly like a coach. That will be infuriating to the fan base. Most fans will only be satisfied by two things: Winning enough games to go bowling, which starts this week against New Mexico State, and Mark Stoops heaping loads of criticism on himself. Accepting blame won't even satisfy most people, who have increasingly made up their minds that getting excited is simply no longer an option.

But in Stoops' Monday press conference, buried inside his many paragraphs worth of quotes, was a guarantee. One that I don't think he should have made.

"We played very good football the last time we were here (in Lexington) for a half and we are going to do that for 60 minutes," Stoops said.

Read it again.

"...We are going to do that for 60 minutes."

Going to do what?

Play very good football. "...for 60 minutes."

That's a promise that will not be easy to deliver on.

Against New Mexico State it will be easier than it was against Florida. It will even be easier to play very good football against the Aggies than it was against Southern Miss.

But when's the last time Kentucky played 60 minutes of very good football? Leaving aside the obvious, that almost no football team plays very good for 60 minutes, there's the reality that one can legitimately wonder whether this Kentucky team is even capable of playing very good football for an entire game.

If Stoops' Cats dominate New Mexico State for 60 minutes, covering the spread, lighting up the scoreboard and drawing sustained cheers from a Commonwealth Stadium that won't be close to sold out, then that will be a step in the right direction.

Simply beating New Mexico State has to be the primary goal. But if the big picture goal is to still reach the postseason for the first time in Stoops' fourth season, dominating the game for a half and turning in 30 minutes of spotty football will be a very bad bellwether for the rest of the season. Kentucky can dominate New Mexico State for two quarters and still win the game. Maybe even still cover. Even with a poor half attached.

But Kentucky can't get to 6-6 unless consistency and "60 minutes" of good football starts happening. The question is whether that's a promise Stoops' team can deliver on. We know he wants it. We know some of the players want it. But can they do it?

When a coach makes a bold statement like that and it doesn't come to pass then it just becomes red meat for his critics. Perhaps Stoops doesn't have anything to lose. At this point, though, fans don't want to hear promises.