Soul Searching Time for UK Football and Mark Stoops After South Carolina Flop

19 Responses

1. EXCUSES by that media person.

   Liam Coen with Will Levis led UK to the 10-win season with a balanced air & ground attack, when the Big Bkue Wall was strong.

   The UK FB collapse began when Stoops hired the OC with his “complex schemes” and has not recovered since that fiasco. The spring training, fall camp & 2022 games set off the decline of UK FB. The frustrated locker room attitude carried onto the field & continued through 2023 and now is still a complete fiasco.

   Stoops was given the money to hire coaches and these high paid coaches have FAILED!!!

   1. The main thing you forgot was the loss of John Schlarman. That was the key that was the beginning of the end.

2. Wolford seems to be the problem. Before he left UK, there were a lot of complaints that he wasn’t rotating players on the O Line to build depth. He went to Alabama and there O Line was horrible the first 2 or 3 games last year. What did Saban do to correct those problems?

   1. You have a very interesting point. I know the “sudden” firing of the OL coach (soon after he got a contract extension) so Stoops could quickly hire Wolford did not sit well with a great UK fan of over 1/2 century who is a friend of mine.

      I was wondering about Wilford as SC devoured the UK OL play after play.

      Not playing backups has been a problem for UK during the Stoops era. His “theory” is to play freshmen on Special Teams instead of giving them some reps at their usual position. That has been costly in 2 ways. No experienced backups and a weak Special Teams.

3. You can’t receive a $9 million salary and produce embarrassing results like the South Carolina fiasco. Stoops would have got a pass if that had been Georgia or even Tennessee, but not South Carolina. I am beginning to think that Kentucky has reached its ceiling with Stoops and things can only yo-yo from here.

   Stoops does have the rest of the season to redeem himself but that is going to require that he win at least 7 more games with one of those wins coming against Ole Miss or Tennessee. Stoops has to prove that he can beat some of the upper echelon teams on a consistent basis. The days of living off wins against the Popcorn States and the bottom feeders of the SEC are gone. A 6-6 record with a trip to the toilet bowl is not going to cut it anymore…especially when we lose that bowl game like we did last year.

   Stoops has elevated the level of the Kentucky football program and has been rewarded for doing so. Along with that $9 million salary comes an expectation for taking the program to the next level, not sliding back to our days of losing seasons…like last year’s 6-7 outcome. There have already been a couple of Rah Rahs who are saying we have no right to expect beating teams like Ole Miss, Tennessee, LSU, and now Oklahoma and Texas with some regularity. Did you notice how I left Alabama and Georgia off of that list? South Carolina is in the bottom half of the league. We MUST beat them, especially on Kroger Field, if we expect to compete for a modest bowl game. I am not expecting to win the SEC…not yet, but 7-5 with a bowl win resulting in an 8-5 season is the MINIMUM expectation now for a coach who is being paid $9 million. If Stoops can’t deliver that, I am sure we can find a coach who can…for $9 million dollars. Rah Rah Rah! Go CATS!

   1. I agree 100%.
      It’s a reasonable expectation, especially for $9 Million AND the high salaries for some of the other coaches.

4. The Rivals guy has missed the mark !!

   “3 yards & a cloud of dust” ended around the time Woody Hayes ran onto the field and hit an opposing player.

   Big 10 FB is not SEC caliber, even in the 21st century. Stoops is the HC in the SEC & paid the 5th highest salary in college FB. 3 yards & a cloud of dust will NOT produce a program which can reach the elite level of the SEC,

   The SEC has SIX of the Top 7 ranked teams in the current poll.

   Don’t try to use Big 10 style FB as an excuse for Stoops FAILURE to produce a competitive team in the SEC.

   1st, just try a new plan before each game – stop the current routine which is to lull the players to sleep just before kickoff !! Then try being the HC of a team in the SEC !!

5. A good football team starts in the locker room. Players that want to compete are also concerned about their co-players , if you will, wanting to compete. That builds a family atmosphere where it’s us against them. The synergistic effect is a team that has greater results than the sum of its individuals. Coach-speak calls this complementary football. Players that are playing just for the money won’t get it done. I have been highly critical of NIL for this reason. It takes a special coaching staff to succeed in the NIL arena. The remainder of the season will let us see if Stoops&Co can get it done.

6. Games like this one have happened too many times under Stoops. The 3 major problems I see under Stoops are
   1. Lack of Game Prep
   2. Lack of Good Game Planning
   3. Lack of In Game Adjustments
   I don’t know if the problem is Stoops, specifically, or if he just has a bunch of assistants that don’t want to be here.
   Heck, I’m not even convinced Stoops wants to be at UK!!

7. Current FB recruiting class top 25 🎉🎉🎉.
   UK currently ranked 13th in SEC 💩💩💩.
   Therein lies our problem – really good loses to great.

   1. I agree with your premise but South Carolina is a bottom of the pack SEC team. If we can’t beat a team like that on our home field, why are we even in the SEC? I am even worried about Vandy now.

   2. That is a fact Paul

8. BP – think your worries are warranted.
   Re Saturday – USC scrapes bye in first game – Vegas makes us a big favorite – kids keep reading “ you’re the best team ever assembled @ UK “ – Stoops supplies USC with a lifetime of bulletin board material about their football culture – a recipe for defeat.
   Our athletes are very very good – just like USC’s ! ( Not upper level great )
   Soooooo, what’s left ? Only coaching.

9. Some really good points made by everyone on here. I agree with just about everyone for first time ever.lol At end of day I will just say we was all drinking the kool aid all summer long hearing and BELIEVING how good this team was going to be. Just like every year and goes for basketball as well when Cal was here. But there is a reason why Mincey didn’t start at UT there is a reason why vandergraft got passed up twice in QB room and didn’t start at UGA . The list goes on but you get my point. We was tricked into thinking we was getting SEC talent ready to go. We got other kids in the program that are good kids and very good ball players that we think world of but at end of day they are reason why they not SEC first team or 2nd. We do have a couple but nothing like the other schools. So until talent like that is on UK roster we will continue to be in basement. As far as not beating the Vandys, South Carolina’s and Miss St. of SEC is just bad coaching. It’s going to get tougher so Stoops might as well move on if NIL and transfer portal is too much. We will never have funds to pull away real talent like the Ohio St. Alabama’s or Texas. All we get is the bust or overrrated kids. And the five star kids are going to the money as well out of high school.

   1. Great post Tommyboy

10. At the end of this season, UK management needs to evaluate whether or not UK needs to field a football program. If it cannot compete in the NIL arena then don’t waste the money on non performers. I love football but this Saturday was not football.

11. At the top of the UK FB “heap of collapse” is an AD with multiple failures which have been ridiculous and costly to UK and costly to UK sports programs. Those who SHOULD oversee the UK AD are responsible but never accountable so the problem never gets reviewed, much less resolved.

    The UK President trying to abolish the faculty committee (faculty congress?) so he does not even have to listen to just one suggestion from faculty & deans is all the proof I need that it is time for UK to fire yet another self-appointed “king” and hire a genuine President who oversees, reviews and actually acres enough to take appropriate action. How long did he bury his head in the sand and let the fraud completely dismantle UK BB until ALL the players left!!!

12. For decades, football was not important to UK EXCEPT for the annual SEC distribution of huge amounts of cash. For decades, the UK administrators made the deal with the devil at allowed a program to languish in the bottom sediments in exchange for the money.

    Coach after coach. Decade after decade. Occasional emergences were always "allowed" by the conference bigwigs, but UK always sank back down into the murky sediments. No commitment of money for top flight coaching salaries, no commitment to upgrading facilities. No real commitment to the ultra loyal UK football fan base, that has included me since the 1960s.

    Then, Rich Brooks came along and gave the fans a taste, but he could not survive because of institutional resistance to upgrade facilities as Brooks wanted. He stepped aside.

    The the Joker experiment was short lived, and in comes Stoops. From my perspective, I believe the UK administration made changes necessary to allow Stoops a chance to be successful. Stoops worked tirelessly for several years to change the culture and upgrade recruiting and the value of the UK Football brand.

    I believe Coach Stoops achieved more with the UK program than I honestly believed possible 12 years ago when he started this journey. I also have long held that Stoops’ job with the UK program requires a full generation, about 20 to 25 years, so frankly, he has not had enough time yet.

    I do believe that there is a very valid argument that Stoops has peaked here, and the program will now move forward with Stoops in the 5 to 8 win per season range. That anticipated season 12 years ago seemed like a dream. Now it is now adequate.

    The real question for me is whether Stoops has the capacity to take the program from this plateau to the top tier of the SEC?

    I have long held that Stoops can do this job, given the time, and that I believe that a reasonable time frame is at least 20 years. However, the persistent Stoops issues like
    an offense throttled down, not developing QB2 with game time, slow starts to games, etc. explain the plateau for me, and I am moving toward the other conclusion, but not there quite yet.

    I want to see how this season plays out.

    4 wins or less, and it will be time for Stoops to hang it up

    5 wins, and I will be willing to let the chips fall where they may, but if he returns, he must be told that his seat is not just hot but on fire.

    6-7 wins, and it is the same as the past two seasons, and no real change in my views warranted

    8 or more wins, he should be coach of the year.

13. Stoops is the 5th highest paid football coach in America. He still has the rest of the season to make this a successful season, but I seriously doubt that will happen. If it doesn’t, Stoops deserves to lose his job. $9 million will attract a young, offensive minded coach who will coach up kids and play to win. The Stoops way elevated us out of the SEC gutter but has plateaued at being an SEC middle of the pack team at best. Offense is winning games and Stoops has no clue about high octane offense. For $9 million, we deserve better. For $9 million, we can get better. It’s time to find a coach who will take us to a competitive level in SEC play.

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