Back in September, Kentucky seemed sunk. After back-to-back seasons with hot starts and unflattering finishes, the Wildcats were kicking off 2016 the way those prior two teams finished.
In a critical year for the program -- and head coach Mark Stoops -- it didn't appear that the Wildcats were making any sort of ground.
But that's why they play the games.
Soon, 0-2 turned to 2-2 and then snowballed to 5-3 with the SEC Eastern Division still in play. After this past Saturday, the team that had come so close, yet been so far with consecutive devastating five-win seasons, is officially bowl eligible after a 49-13 win over Austin Peay.
"You want to deliver for your team, players, administration, fan base... There is a lot of people involved and an awful lot of hard work going into it," said Stoops, who began the year 12-24 at Kentucky. "And it is tough when you are building a program and you are knocking down one door after another. It is not always going to go according to script. There are going to be ups and downs and you are going to have to weather the storm and stay the course and stick to the things that you know are going to make a difference. We have done that and we know there is still a lot to do.”
Just 430-plus miles southeast of Kentucky's jubilation, you'll find even more unexpected elation in Columbia, South Carolina. Here, the Gamecocks weren't supposed to sniff bowl eligibility in Will Muschamp's first year. Improvement? Yes, but nothing drastic enough to send a very young South Carolina team to the postseason.
Like their northern counterparts, the Gamecocks were full of surprises. The season started weirdly enough with a 13-10 upset of Vanderbilt in Nashville and culminated with a stunning 24-21 win over then-No. 18 Tennessee and earning bowl eligibility 44-31 win over Western Carolina over the weekend.
Also, like Kentucky, the Gamecocks' bid for the East stretched into November.
“I’m really proud of our football team," Muschamp said. "Whenever you’re sitting at 2-4 going into the open week, the way things are in our society the negativity builds up. The staff stuck together; these players stuck together and continued to invest in what we were doing. Really the second half of the season, we’ve been a little bit more of what we wanted to be."
In a season that saw the SEC East take so much heat for a handful of ghastly performances, these two programs shined bright in their respective communities. You can't ignore the internal improvements that pushed both programs to six wins in a year in which both had plenty of opportunities to easily roll over.
South Carolina was at a disadvantage from the start with youth and roster holes. Players said they pressed during the first half of the season, but really started to buy in during a crucial bye week following a 28-14 loss to Georgia. The Gamecocks then won four of five with a re-energized team and the right arm of freshman quarterback Jake Bentley.
Muschamp took so much criticism during his four rough years as Florida’s head coach, but his coaching evolution has been clear in Columbia, as he has a program on the slide trending up in his first year.
"I’m extremely proud of our football team and how they’ve continued to have some fight and resolve," Muschamp said. "It says a lot about the character that we have in the locker room, and it says a lot about our staff. Those guys sticking together, the support we have here is outstanding. ... I’m excited about where we are but really excited about where we’re heading."
The Wildcats began the year blowing a 35-10 lead over Southern Miss and getting torched 45-7 at Florida. A month later, Alabama toppled the Cats, 34-6, and Kentucky started November with back-to-back losses to Georgia and Tennessee. But in between all that, the Wildcats won five of six games, including a back-and-forth 40-38 win over Mississippi State that came down to a last-second Austin MacGinnis field goal.
Kentucky went from losing the close games, to winning them. A team that began the year with such a small margin for error, down two senior defensive lineman along an already thin front and still behind most of the league in talent, found a physical running identity (alongside its backup quarterback) and a defense that settled in on things it could execute and build on.
Stoops said the progress didn't just happen in-season. It was part of the offseason change which grew into being physically and mentally able to handle more. It was about the slow changing of culture and building of a program. Standards were set, and the Wildcats built on them when things went rough, as players and coaches held each other more accountable to finally get over that five-win hump.
"If you're in football, there's nowhere to run, there's nowhere to hide," Stoops said. "You either look at yourself in the mirror and see all the things you can prove ... all the things you can control and you address them. When you hit a real pressure cooker like that, you either cave or you go back to work -- come out fighting, come out swinging."