Kentucky coach Mark Stoops is searching for answers for unhappy fans after UK dropped to 3-4 with a loss at Florida. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Coach Mark Stoops has changed the culture of Kentucky football by going to eight straight bowl games, a streak that looks likely to end after the one-sided loss at Florida.
Kentucky is 3-4 and has road games left at Tennessee and Texas where the Cats will be significant underdogs. Kentucky hosts Auburn this week but is 2-10 in its last 12 SEC home games. The Cats will close the season by hosting Louisville, a team that has shown it can score points and that’s a problem for a UK offense that only has six offensive touchdowns in five SEC games.
Kentucky’s offense ranks 115th out of 134 FBS teams in scoring (20.4 points per game), 124th in pass efficiency (113.93 rating), 115th in total offense (319.9), 113th in yards per play (5.02), 111th in plays of 20 or more yards (24) and 127th in plays of 30 or more yards (seven).
Stoops said after the Florida loss that his team must play “near darn perfect” to win and Kentucky certainly has not played that way most of this season. Florida quarterback DJ Lagway completed only seven passes against UK but they were for 259 yards.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in any secondary I’ve been a part of,” Stoops said.
Stoops tried to sound positive after the Florida loss but his words are not enough to reassure UK fans.
“We’ll just stay the course. Our guys have responded and responded well at times on the road. We took a butt-kicking. Give them credit, they played very well. I have no worries about our guys falling apart or anything. We need to play better,” Stoops said after the game.
“Like I always talk to the guys about — it gets a little bit redundant, but it’s the truth — when you get knocked down and you don’t play well, you have to respond. You gotta be resilient. This is a tough league. It’s rough. Believe me, I’m very disappointed, but not defeated. We will get back to work. I want to see improvement. I know we need to play better and I promise you everybody in there cares and is going to go to work.
19 Responses
Auburn is a MUST win game or this season has fallen apart. Stoops is sounding more and more like a basketball coach we used to have. Sometimes when your team IS falling apart, the best thing to say is…we have work to do.
There is an old adage : Offense sells tickets and defense wins football games. A lot of wisdom in that but the real crux of any football team is the O Line and D Line. If you have good line play on both sides of scrimmage, it hides a lot of sins everywhere else. The Cats are currently getting good line play from neither side of scrimmage. Even when the Cats were getting production out of the line play, they were usually one or one and a half deep. We have allowed the line play to atrophy to the point where it is a detriment to winning. Your biggest bang for the buck right now is on line play. Fix that and we’re two thirds there.
Let me drop this nugget on everyone. Boise state was 8-6 last year. There worst record I’m decades. They are 5-1 so far this year. I said that to say this… Why would you hire a coordinator who couldn’t get it done at a powerhouse out west? He took over Missouri at the end of the year. They didn’t offer him the offensive coordinator job at Missouri. So he leaves for his alma and the team has there worst year in decades then Stoops hires him to call plays in the SEC. The best of the best conference? No sir.
Enlightening!
That sums it all up.
Stoops hired someone he felt he could buffalo & get things done the Stoop way.
The OC & OL coach both got hired after FAILING !!!!
This remind me of Newton hiring TLT instead of the true protege of Pitino, who was Billy Donovan. TLT NEVER recruited a player who went to the FF !!! TLT choked big time in his last game at UGA ?blown away by a much mower seed in very 1st Tourney game!! UGA fell behind by about 20 points and TLT did NOT call a TO!!! Then Newton went PC and hired the loser.
Oh yeh, that guy Newton would not hire, Billy Donovan, won back-to-back TITLES at FL who was never a real contender except when Donovan was there.
THEN Pitino was not even talked to about returning to UK when he left Boston. That FAILURE belongs to the AD!!
Stoops is making a bad choice over and over! If not for some quality recruits, UK would be winning 3 to 5 games every year thanks to Stoops.
Stoops QUIT caring and it shows !!!
ANY team who is an also-ran most of a season that rises in on a couple of occasions and plays like Champs against top ranked teams are teams with talent but NOT a decent coach.
I think the team has already fell apart.
It started when he hired to OC with schemes that ruined the Offense and it has carried over to this very day with players confused running routes & unable to focus to catch a ball & not taught techniques to block for a pass play.
The locker room needs medics 24/7 because this team needs life support!
You are right.
CU@Final4 is a classic handle and also the phrase the BBN needs to turn to now that UK FB has returned to the far too often cellar status.
AUB just walloped UK 31-10 (even tho they took a knee after getting near the goal line & could have easily made it 31 instead of 24).
So UK jumps out to a 10-0 lead and someone on the sideline triggered the shutdown which enveloped it only the Offense after one of the best starts in the Stoops era but it even shut down all effort, interest, focus & function by the D. We know the secondary loves to give up a 1st down on 3rd & long but tonight the entire group of players closed down for about 55 minutes of the game!
There are MANY problems – no culture unless bad & disconnected is a culture!
I haven’t seen the first thing from Hamdan that makes me think he was a good hire and I feel the same way about Wolford.
If Stoops isn’t worried about losing his team, I think that says a lot about his disinterest and concern for where his team is right now.
The offense plays like they have absolutely no leadership in practice or in games.
My feeling is the team has been lost most of the season, and I don’t feel good about this game at all because we have a very bad secondary and a only average QB with group of receivers that have difficulty getting open and catching passes when thrown their way.
Valid concerns Mike
I’d like to know at this point how Stoops could be sure of this. The outcomes of games and why the outcomes have proven otherwise
Hamden was an absolute bust for the offense… I would love to know why they actually thought he could come to the SEC with a very average offense at Boise St. WOW what a whiff.. So many good OC’s that could have taken this team to a possible 9-10 win season.. Yeah I believe the talent was there to accomplish 10 wins
The emphasis by the UK AD & department is choosing uniform colors which do NOT represent UK. Just wear UK blue!!! If some players don’t like it, then take a portal hike.
This shuold be Stoops lasr season if they dont get a bowl game.
Yes she can Cynthiana
Stoops took the Kenfucky out of Kentucky football only to bring it back again. It’s time to move on to a new coaching staff.
Sadly enough, Stoops has quickly undone everything he spent a decade here building up–he has quickly taken us right back to where he found us under Joker. The two stats that stand out the most to me, and that are the most revealing (other than the 2-11 in the last 13 SEC home games) is this is the first time we have won only one SEC game or less since 2013 (Stoops’ first season). And this is the first time we have lost this many SEC home games in a row since 2012-2013—so that was during the end of Joker’s final season, and through the beginning of Stoops’ first season. When u are seeing stats on this team in 2024 that are dating back to the beginning of Stoops’ time and the end of Joker’s era, that’s when u know things are really bad, and that is damn scary. Because we all remember what that nightmare looked like back then–and this season has quickly turned into another one. Major steps backward have been taken each of the last 3 seasons. 2022 was a major step back with the loss of Liam Coen, and the offense being basically about as bad as this year’s. And u had an unhealthy Will Levis after the 5th game of the year for the rest of the season, along with Chris Rodriguez being suspended the first 4, which of course was due to the violation that got the 2021 season vacated. Its like everything has just gradually died ever since we were at our highest point in 2021. I went to the LSU game in 2021, which was the last SEC home game before the 2-13 run began. And of course that 2-13 run began with a heartbreaker against what team? TN. Everything always goes back to TN. They are our football curse. But I was at that LSU game, which at the time I felt was our biggest win of the Stoops era –that one, and FLA the SAT before. We beat FLA and LSU at home on back to back SAT’s the first week of OCT 2021, and we sat at 6-0 overall at that point headed to GA. And so then the 2-13 SEC home record began a month later with a 45-42 loss to TN. Since then, we have only beaten Miss St in 2022 and FLA in 2023. I remember leaving out after that win over LSU in 2021 feeling like our football program was at its highest point that I had ever seen it. Levis was having an incredible season and the coaching overall was at ITS highest level also–that season made me believe Stoops had finally seen the light on some things, especially with regard to the offense. I’ll never forget the feeling I had that night–it was pure joy. I was so excited about the win, but I had legitimate joy over where our football program stood at that point. And now three years later, looking back at that night, it’s as if that’s the point where the program actually began the decline. I remember I was really sick over that loss to TN–we should have beaten them–but that game is where some of the old classic Stoops coaching blunders came back to bite us in the ass. They still finished that season strong–a 30-pt romp over LOU, and a CitrusBowl win over Iowa, which they were actually very lucky to win. But they finished strong, 10-3 with a bowl win for the second time in 4 years, and it was as good as it could get. And maybe that’s why it has all come down since. But if u had told me at that time that they were beginning a future 2-13 run against SEC teams at home, I would have never believed it. I truly believed that Stoops had our program past that kind of ineptness now. The first domino to fall was Liam Coen deciding to leave for the NFL that first time in JAN of 2022 ON TOP OF the fact we had a scandal beginning as well that we didn’t know anything about at the time. One of the best seasons of all-time in KY history was vacated over something as miniscule as that deal of players getting paid for hours they didn’t work. And we can sit here and talk about how petty that is–but im sorry, as the coach, u ABSOLUTELY CANNOT ALLOW something like that to occur on your watch–thats where the lack of institutional control, lack of accountability, and lack of discipline comes in with Stoops. This has been a problem for YEARS. And they obviously knew about it at the time because Rodriguez was being held out of the first four games by UK, and rememeber they wouldn’t tell us at the time the reason for it? It makes u wonder what else has gone on within that program under his watch. But over these last 3 seasons, there has been a clear decline and a huge step backward taken in terms of style and quality of play, execution in games, in-game decision-making from coaches, a slow death of the offense, specifically the passing game. QB play has been inept, and we have watched a slow death of our offensive line, which became part of our identity with Stoops– but the O-LINE died because it’s KEEPER died: John Schlarman. His story is so heartbreaking I think–and our O-LINE has never been the same since then. They were pretty good in 2021 protecting Levis, but they had all of their veterans back for their last season, so the true drop-off for them really began in 2022. And starting with 2022, we have seen 3 different OC’s and 3 different O-Line coaches, and all have come up short in terms of getting it done. And our skill position players have zero continuity each year in terms of their coaches and the system they have to learn. Devin Leary ended up being a huge disappointment and underachiever in 2023 but I just don’t think he was really all that good to begin with. And Ray Davis ended up proving what I have been saying since last year–that we had reached a point in our program where our running game was going to join the passing game on going south on us next–we had had a long line of established running backs for the last 7-8 years that were all here a long time, and became the established back in our offense, and did it quickly too–but that run ended after 2022 when Chris Rodriguez graduated. Last year’s team caught the break of a lifetime by getting Ray Davis–he stepped in last year and filled this role right away, and saved a team with bad QB play, bad OLINE play, and subpar receiver play. Last year’s team ends up with a record like this year’s team if no Ray Davis. He extended the success of our running game for one more year. So then this year becomes the year we have no established runner and we have lost all of the past great ones—so what happens with a Mark Stoops team when the hallmark, the calling card, of his offense goes away? Meaning the running game…..that has been Stoops’ go-to—–that, and the O-LINE—and when those two areas are failing u, u end up with a season like this. Altho this year has just become an all-systems failure, all the way from players to coaches, but the problems with the offense are the ones that have been most detrimental to this team. I mean, u gotta be able to score points!!! U gotta at least be able to hit 20 per game, and most of the time, even 20 isn’t enough to win, and they have hit that total only twice in SEC play!! And when healthy and at full-strength, this defense has proven that they’re good enough to win in the SEC, so if u can just hit 20 or more pts each game, u have a chance to win. Thats what makes it so frustrating– the D goes out there and busts their ass every game, and gets no return on their investment from the offense, then they end up with half their unit out with injury. But this offense is absolutely atrocious and sickening to watch, and Brock is just not that good, I’m sorry. I think he gives his all, and I like him better than Leary, and I think with a decent OLine protecting him, and with some time in the pocket, he can throw a decent ball. But alot of poor decisions, and terrible pocket presence, too many sacks taken, and too many interceptions (this all applied to Leary too). Its the same shit-show year after year with this offense–we have had only one good year and one exception to all this, and that was in 2021. Aside from that, u can take this back to when Terry Wilson was the QB, and on before that. And it’s like Stoops wants to do the exact OPPOSITE of what anybody else with a brain would do: he tries to make guys like Terry Wilson throw the ball, tries to turn him into a passer when his strength is as a runner! And he was out there doing the same thing with Wimsatt tonight–he brings in the QB who is supposed to be a running threat, and makes him start throwing the ball! Then later, after down by two TD’s and time running short, now he’s calling run plays and letting the play clock almost run all the way out before running them! It just makes no sense. And IDC what anybody says–Hamden may not be that great, IDK–but theres no doubt in my mind that Stoops is heavily involved in our offense, and the plays that are run, and decisions that are made. And Stoops could go out and get another new OC, but it’s never going to make any difference– because we have seen these same issues play out too many times, too many diff seasons, and too many different players. Its the same mistakes and the same issues every year no matter what. Stoops has had 7 different OC’s in 12 yrs as a coach. So that many diff OC’s, yet in 12 yrs unable to break thru to a solution to these problems? And who is the one common denominator amongst all those diff OC’s?? Hell, Stoops should have just stayed true to himself and stuck with Eddie Gran—at least they found a way to move the ball–granted it was on the ground, but who cares as long as u are moving the ball, scoring points, and WINNING GAMES!!! They actually made that Lynn Bowden offense work! I actually believe Stoops is going to step down after the season is over. U know he feels the heat–but I think the changes in the game have been his downfall–he doesn’t want to deal with the transfer portal, nor NIL, either one. He looks like a guy who has mailed it in,and his team looks and plays that way as well. Its really disappointing to me to see a KY team just give up and not even fight anymore–u could have still played for something respectable tonight–how bout just playing and coaching with a little pride? I did see that there is a rumor floating around that he is wanting to move to Iowa to be closer to his boys. I, for one, hope he decides to end it here after this year–he hit the peak of his success here from 2018-2022, and he knows it. And we are never getting back to that again with him, especially not with the SEC being even deeper and more dangerous now–not only two new teams, but now other teams like Vandy and SCAR are coming up and becoming a problem. Since the beginning of the downfall, we have gone 2-11 in SEC home games, lost to SCAR 3 straight times–2 straight at home–2 in a row to Vandy at home, 2 in a row to TN at home, 2 straight to GA at home, and two big ones that effectively ended each of their seasons: 2023 to Missouri–giving up 38 unanswered points after blowing a 14-pt lead in the first qtr WITH THE BALL driving into the red zone yet again before fumbling and turning over both the ball and the game—and 2024 to an AUB team that came in winless in the conference and giving up 24 unanswered points after blowing a 10-0 lead in the first qtr WITH THE BALL before turning the ball back over on downs, and the game……I mean, u cannot make this stuff up. To me, the losses to SCAR and Vandy were the real "wake-up calls/danger signs", so to speak, that were huge red flags that this football program was in serious trouble. The two losses to Missouri and AUB were both turning-point losses, in both the individual seasons, and with the overall trajectory of the program itself. Folks, it pains me to say we have come full circle under Mark Stoops–he came in and rescued us and rebuilt us into something new from the ashes of the Joker–and 12 yrs later, he is going to end up leaving us right back in that pile of Joker’s ashes after tearing down and destroying everything that he spent 12 years building. Its honestly just sad when u think about it.
IMO Stoops caught wind that A&M was going to offer him a gold mine and in his mind he moved on from UK. EXCEPT, A&M came to their senses and Stoops was stuck. Meanwhile he got behind the recruiting and development curve with very visible results. BTW, KY is not going to win with Wimsett at QB or Hamden at OC. Neither have the first clue as to what they are doing.