“A comedy of errors” is what can describe Kentucky’s performance against Vanderbilt on Saturday. Despite having more offensive yards than the Commodores, the Wildcats continuously shot themselves in the foot, leaving multiple scores off the board.

Coming off a bye week, the lack of discipline was concerning. It is something that Mark Stoops wants to find a solution for as Kentucky enters the toughest stretch of their schedule. That starts with a team meeting on Monday, and he discussed that on his weekly call-in show on Monday.

“The biggest thing is messaging for the week and getting ready for that team meeting, ” Stoops said. “I thought it went very well with a lot of accountability needed to be shown and done in a lot of areas. We’ve watched all that (film) and watched it together as a team. Started from there.”

This Kentucky team has more talent than Vanderbilt and South Carolina, yet they were embarrassed by both teams due to compounded and often self-inflicted mistakes. Going into week eight, they should be past that. That starts with holding each player accountable.

“You’re grown. I don’t anticipate anybody in here being sensitive because I’m calling you out in front of the whole team,” Stoops said in his message to them. “It’s not about pointing fingers, it’s about finding a solution to why we’re making the same mistakes and getting them corrected.

“If they can’t handle that, then they can move on.”

As Kentucky travels to ‘The Swamp’ to take on Florida this weekend, we will see if this week’s meeting will push things back in the right direction.

Jamon Dumas-Johnson transferred to Kentucky from Georgia, having won two national championships with the Bulldogs. In seven weeks at Kentucky, Dumas-Johnson has already experienced more losses than he did in three seasons in Athens.

Simply put, he’s not used to losing and made that clear after the Wildcats suffered an embarrassing loss to Vanderbilt.

“We gotta make some changes,” Dumas-Johnson told the media after the game. “Not try, we gotta make some changes because I’m not used to this feeling and I don’t like this feeling.”

Having come off a historical road win over Ole Miss and a bye-week, this week’s performance was certainly a letdown. The worst part though, there is nothing to point to as to why.

“No matter what message you give to a team, you gotta go out there and execute the call,” said Dumas-Johnson. “Play as a team, but I don’t think we played our ball today. The reason why? I don’t know, but we just gotta play ball. We’ve already seen what type of ball we can play as a team. That just didn’t happen today. Why? I don’t know.”

An issue that has plagued Kentucky for a large part of Stoops’ tenure, reared its head once again, a lack of discipline. The final tally, twelve penalties for 105 yards, leaving multiple scores on the field.

“They killed the whole game,” Dumas-Johnson said when asked about the penalties. “As a whole, we just gotta limit the penalties. It kills a game like that. You have no chance when you have penalties like that, especially that last drive.”

The Kentucky linebacker, clearly frustrated, is looking to use his experience to help the team get back on the right track.

“We just got calm down. I’ve been in situations like this and came out on top multiple times. Get a quick stop, three-and-out, let the offense try to do their thing, give the offense a chance. I think that’s what we did the last two minutes, but the message is to just calm down, we’re good.”

Next week the Wildcats travel to ‘The Swamp’ to take on Florida, a place they have only won in twice in 45 seasons. Sitting at 3-3, there is a possibility that Kentucky is not bowl-eligible for the first time since 2015.

Despite not being ranked in the preseason Top 25, expectations were high for the Kentucky football program and there was good reason why. The Wildcats returned ten starters on defense, had the second-most experienced offensive line, a talented receiving core, and a former five-star QB transferring in from Georgia.

Now seven weeks into the season, the Wildcats are just 3-3 overall and 1-3 in the SEC. Two of those losses came at home in embarrassing fashion, to teams that Kentucky was once dominant against, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.

Following the latter this weekend, Former Kentucky linebacker Kash Daniel publicly criticized the performance.

“Fire up the cotton candy machine, bring out the three-legged goat, and fry up the funnel cakes ’cause this is an absolute circus,” Daniel said in the 4th quarter on X.

Daniel’s comments continued after the game too, specifically criticizing Kentucky’s leadership and effort, or lack thereof.

“This is what happens when you have zero leaders and an opposing team that would rather die than lose.”

With two top-ten teams remaining on the schedule, Tennessee and Texas, to play on the road, things are not going to get any easier for Kentucky. Some players need to step up in a big way to close out the season.