Mark Stoops admitted he made a big mistake during Kentucky's loss to Tennessee

Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Stoops admitted he made a mistake in his team's 33-27 loss to the Tennessee Vols on Saturday night. 

In the first quarter, Stoops went for it on fourth down, after punting in a similar situation earlier, and the play resulted in Tennessee taking over on the Kentucky 34 (the Vols stuffed Wildcats running Ray Davis' fourth-down run attempt).

The poor decision led to an easy three points for the Vols and an early 10-0 lead. 

After the game, Stoops admitted that he was "pressing" with the decision. 

"The going for it early, very, I don’t, yeah, I mean, you know, if I pressed early, do you know what I mean, the first one, you know, we had two fourth and ones," said Stoops. "You know fourth and a yard or a half yard right at the start of the game there and punted it away. They scored quickly. You know, probably got impatient and went for it with the second one. That’s on me. So that was it....I regret the early one, pressing a little bit."

Tennessee's offense hasn't been quite as potent this season as it was last season. But the Vols still have the ability to create explosive plays out of nowhere (which they did a couple of times against Kentucky on Saturday night). It's obvious that Tennessee's reputation for explosive plays was on Stoops' mind, otherwise he probably punts in that situation and plays the field position game. 

This is just another example of the way the Vols, under Josh Heupel, change the way teams play the game. And when you can change the way a team plays an again, it's almost always an instant advantage.