LEXINGTON, Ky. — Georgia fan Greg Wassel was tailgating in Kentucky for the third time Saturday. He and his red-clad friends stood in a nearly empty parking lot for hours before Wildcats fans streamed in, not exactly thrilled about what awaited them.

“It’s dead here,” said Wassel, referring partly to the number of spectators, but more to the atmosphere. “So many Kentucky fans came to us and said, ‘Please be gentle with us.'”

As it turned out, Georgia did. And the chance for an upset was there, an opportunity for Mark Stoops to pull off the biggest win of his long tenure, a breakthrough that would change the dejected mood of the Kentucky fan base. It looked like it could happen…

Then he punted the ball.

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Let’s say this: Stoops’ decision to punt was a justifiable one. It was fourth and eighth downs against Georgia’s stingy defense. Stoops had all three timeouts. And even after the decision didn’t work, Stoops didn’t regret it and brought it up unprompted.

“I’ve been honest with you for years and if I make a mistake like I did last week, I’ll tell you. I don’t regret punting the ball,” Stoops said. “I felt like if we tried it there and didn’t get it done, if we stopped our offense, they would have to go all the way down the field. That would have been difficult against that defense. And (fourth-and-8) is a predictable passing situation. That’s not our strength.”

Mark Stoops’ Kentucky Wildcats are 1-2 after two straight losses. (Carter Skaggs / USA Today)

But here was the problem: Why was Kentucky even on the fourth and eighth try?

That’s when Stoops and his team made the biggest mistake during that sequence: When the Wildcats had a third-and-8 from the Georgia 47-yard line, they attempted a pass without realizing they were in four-attempt territory, and they were successful with the ball in the game against Georgia — 5 yards per carry, not counting sacks. But Kentucky not only passed the ball on the third attempt, but also on the second attempt, and that was incomplete, too.

Kentucky has a dual-threat quarterback, but he drops back on second and third down against a Georgia defense that had three sacks, applied more pressure and played well in the secondary?

That’s why Kentucky lost. And that’s why, despite his success at Kentucky and all the credit he deserves for his team’s performance on Saturday, Stoops is 1-2 in this group with many more tough games to come.

And it contributes to the fact that Stoops and Kentucky football are simply stuck at the moment.

Stoops is the SEC’s head coach, the longest-tenured coach and one of the most respected by his peers. He is Kentucky’s winningest coach since Bear Bryant. Twelve years ago, Stoops took over a struggling program that had gone 2-10 the year before he arrived and hadn’t had a 10-win season since 1977. After a slow start – Stoops went 2-10 his first year, then had two straight five-win seasons – the Wildcats had eight straight winning seasons and two 10-win seasons.

He ended a 31-year losing streak to Florida. Kentucky is one of only eight teams to have made eight consecutive bowl appearances. There were no big breakout wins or top-10 finishes, but under Stoops the program was respectable, competitive and on the right track.

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That was all until a Week 2 loss to South Carolina that dwindled the fan base. Among them is Rob Pierce, a 2000 graduate who now has a child at the school. Pierce was so happy with Stoops that he was in favor of giving the coach a statue. But even Pierce, checking in Friday from his home in Owensboro, Kentucky, is growing concerned, if not tired.

“I’m not ready yet,” Pierce said of the hot phase. “I’d watch a few more games first. But I’d like to see a little more fire in his belly.”

That’s what happened in Saturday’s game, when Kentucky nearly knocked off the No. 1 team in the country. Stoops could use that to have another winning season, or at least keep the bowl streak alive. But there are road games against Ole Miss, Tennessee and Texas, and home games against Auburn, Louisville and even Vanderbilt that won’t be a walk in the park when the team that blew against South Carolina returns.

Stoops isn’t very likely to be on the hot seat. He has a huge severance package, the backing of major donors and what he’s done with the program lends him credibility. Even Stoops’ flirtation with Texas A&M at the end of last season can be overlooked, as Kentucky fans have a nuanced view. They understand why Stoops was interested — Kentucky once poached Texas A&M’s basketball coach, after all — and the news broke the same day Stoops led Kentucky to an upset win at Louisville.

“To be honest, I don’t think a lot of UK fans think about it,” Pierce said. “I think it was a big deal at the time, but we had just beaten Louisville. His popularity was relatively high, so we were happy to have him come back.”

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The bigger turning point may have come earlier. It was after last year’s loss to Georgia (51-13 in Athens) when Stoops said on his radio show that “Georgia bought some pretty good players” and spent ZERO money to do so, and then turned on Kentucky fans: “I encourage anyone who’s upset to shell out a little more.”

That didn’t sit well with some fans, and it didn’t help that Kentucky lost four of its next five games. Then came the win at Louisville, a close bowl loss to Clemson and an offseason that saw key additions, including quarterback Brock Vandagriff, while retaining good players like defensive lineman Deone Walker, a possible first-round pick.

Optimism had returned, the complaints after the Georgia game and other worries had subsided. Then came the debacle in South Carolina. The comeback against Georgia was supposed to slow the downward trend, but how much?

“We’re pretty happy with an eight-win season,” Pierce said. “I don’t think anyone who’s realistic is going to complain about an eight-win season. But I think being in the 12-team playoffs maybe every four or five years is about the maximum that most realistic fans would expect.”

The Stoops who rebuilt Kentucky’s program and then kept it competitive, the coach whose Kentucky team brought Georgia to the brink of defeat on Saturday, could still be the coach who takes the Wildcats to the playoffs.

But the Stoops whose team failed last week and who ended the run at the worst possible time on Saturday night is not that coach. Which Stoops will Kentucky get the rest of the way? That’s the big question.

(Above: Michael Hickey / Getty Images)