Mark Stoops bothered a lot of people when asked about the 38-point gap between his team and No. 1 Georgia.
"It is what it is; fans have that right (to complain)," Stoops said. "I give it to them. I just encourage them to donate more. Because that's what those teams are doing. I can promise you in Georgia, they bought some pretty good players. You're allowed to these days.
"We could use some help. And that's what they look like, you know what I mean, when you have 85 of them. I encourage anybody that's disgruntled to pony up some more."
One camp thought Stoops was throwing his current players under the bus, implying he'd toss them aside if only his fans would increase his salary cap. Others objected to his use of the word "bought," as if Georgia's players were commodities to be purchased and not human beings paid a fair market value for their services.
Either way, Stoops walked away from those comments during Wednesday's SEC teleconference.
“Basically one person was questioning me and the program and getting over the hump,” Stoops explained. “I really simply should have said, ‘Hey dude, I’ve gotten over a lot of humps. That’s not a hump, that’s Mt. Everest.'”
Stoops also said his comments were taken out of context.
“I think people just want to take one little piece of it and blow it completely out of proportion,” Stoops said. “If you listen to the whole thing… I mean just listen to Kirby. He knows. He knows exactly what I was saying. We’re all in the same boat. Kirby’s probably happy. He’s probably trying to rally up more money too. We all need it. It’s just the way it is. I wasn’t taking any shots. I took full responsibility. We got our butts beat. We need to respond better and that’s it.”
Kentucky hosts Missouri on Saturday night (7:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network).
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.