Mark Stoops breaks down South Carolina matchup

The 17th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats are looking to make it five straight wins over the South Carolina Gamecocks Saturday night.

Most importantly, the Cats are trying to improve to 5-0 on the season and 3-0 in the SEC.

Getting there will be no easy task as the Cats will have to take down the fast-paced South Carolina Gamecocks at Kroger Field Saturday night.

The Cocks sit at 2-1 and are coming off a road win against a much-improved Vanderbilt team.

Despite saying Monday he had to “poke” his team to move on from the big win over Mississippi State, Mark Stoops was happy with his teams week of preparation.

“They’ve been good. They’ve been fine. It’s been a good week, just like I expected. We had a lot going on over the weekend with the late game, and I had them a little busier than normal on Sunday, and we had a few things going on during the week, but they’ve been great.”

The biggest key to winning Saturday night will be stopping South Carolina’s new and faster-paced offense under first-year offensive coordinator Bryan McClendon.Thankfully, Kentucky has a lot of veterans who’ve seen it before, and it’s a major plus.

“It does help. The experience always helps. It’ll help if you get off the field, so hopefully we’ll play good and get effective and get some stops because if they get rolling it puts a lot of pressure on you. So we practice it; we practice against our offense with it.

“The guys have been good, but you have to execute, be effective and try to get them behind the chains. When they’re going that fast, obviously they try to steal some off of you.”

It all starts with quarterback Jake Bentley. Stoops said Bentley is “confident.”

“Just maturity. Confidence. He’s got some weapons. He could be confident with those guys he’s got around. He’s got some real talented players and they’re a real talented offensive team.”

Kentucky will be taking their home field in front of a sold-out crowd Saturday night when the Gamecocks come in and try to play spoiler to what has been a magical start to the season for the Wildcats.