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UK Notebook: Lyons says Cats won't crumble

November 04, 2007|LARRY VAUGHT

LEXINGTON - After Kentucky lost 49-0 to LSU last year, receiver Dicky Lyons confidently guaranteed that the Cats would beat Mississippi State.

While Kentucky coach Rich Brooks didn't like Lyons' brash prediction, UK did win and save its season.

So does Lyons have anything to predict or guarantee about UK's upcoming game at Vanderbilt on Saturday or games with Georgia or Tennessee following the Cats disappointing loss to Mississippi State on Oct. 27?

"If they (the players) want to listen to me, they can. But you know a loss is a loss. You can't dwell on it. You have to throw this one back and take the anger you feel out on the next team you play," Lyons said.

"That's what we did last year at Mississippi State. Now we have to do it again. I know I want payback for playing so bad. I want to get out there and play hard and get to feeling better."

Lyons says it would be a mistake to write off UK's season because of the loss to Mississippi State.

"We are not a team to crumble. We have too many leaders on this team. We are not going to let that happen," Lyons said.

Yet UK could be an underdog in each of its remaining three games. If the Cats lose all three, they would finish 6-6 and might miss going to a second straight bowl.

Valuable lesson

"It is not going to happen," Lyons said. "I guarantee that.

"We held ourselves to 14 points with turnovers and interceptions and just playing bad football against Mississippi State. I don't care who you are playing. If you turn the ball over that many times (six), you are not going to win the game. It was the same thing when we lost at South Carolina."

Lyons says the Cats learned a valuable lesson against State that they should have already known.

"Nothing comes easy. We should know that. We knew winning the SEC championship would be difficult, but obviously we failed to understand totally what that means. Now we've got to reset our goals and find something else that we can reach," he said.

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