West Virginia coach Neal Brown understands that fan criticism is not always personal. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Obviously there is a lot of negativity surrounding the Kentucky football program going into Saturday night’s game at Tennessee.
The Cats are 3-5 and lost all four home Southeastern Conference games they had this season. Many fans are openly calling for coach Mark Stoops to be fired while others are more than just a little bit upset with UK’s undisciplined and unfocused play way too often this season.
Remember former UK offensive coordinator Neal Brown? He came to UK when Stoops started his tenure before leaving to become head coach at Troy and now West Virginia.
The Mountaineers are 4-4 and not having as good a season as many fans expected even though the teams they have lost to all have sparkling records. Some fans are also openly calling for Brown’s job and many more are openly second guessing him.
Brown responded to how he handled the criticism at his weekly press conference and I thought it might be something insightful compared to how Stoops has not really addressed the fan unrest in great detail.
“You want to do well. You’re sacrificing a ton of time and energy into doing this. When it doesn’t go right, man, it hurts. It’s almost like a mourning process. You lose a game on Saturday and it’s not the same, I’m just saying it’s similar, it’s like a death. You go through this Sunday, Monday, you’re mourning and you feel sorry for yourself and you’re really down and then you kind of turn the page,” Brown said.
“For me, it’s after the press conference. I wash it away with that one and then you get excited about the next one and that’s the build-up to the game on Saturday.
“But for me, the criticism is like, we’ve lost two games and we played really poorly in the second half and the Iowa State game was kind of laid out and we just didn’t deliver. So that criticism was fair. Fans want to win, and they should. That’s fair. I never take it personal.
“Most of the people being negative, I don’t know them and they don’t know me. They’re upset at West Virginia football. They’re upset at the head coach, but they don’t really know me, and so I don’t take it personal. They’re upset at the product and that’s fair. They’re a constituent. They are people that pay for tickets. They’re the people that give money. They are people that have graduated from the university. They’re a shareholder.
“If you’re a shareholder in a company and a company is not financially making money or paying dividends or whatever it is, then you have a right to be upset and complain. I get that. It’s not personal.”
That’s how I feel the criticism being directed at Stoops is now. It’s not personal because few fans — or media members — really know him. It’s criticism of the program that he heads and while he has to shoulder most of the blame for UK’s 3-5 marks, it’s also on players and other coaches.
However, I really liked Brown’s explanation of understanding why fans are upset and have a right to be upset and hopefully Stoops understands that too.
6 Responses
Good insight and I agree with him totally. I don’t hate Stoops or any of the coaches. I just hate what they are doing or not doing.
Really great insight, and pretty rare honesty and transparency from a head coach these days–a hell of alot more than KY’s coaches!!! But do u see the difference? Neal Brown doesn’t take the criticism PERSONALLY–he understands WHY the fans are upset and WHERE IT IS their anger and frustration is directed. His analogy on comparing the football team to a company that you have capital invested in, and the company stock is down or not performing well–probably the most accurate comparison and closest example that could be made on illustrating the situation. But unlike Brown, this is the essence of Stoops’ problem here–he takes this stuff personally! And he always has. That was the same problem with the former bball coach. It seems we get coaches at KY with big egos and thin skin. These guys are in the wrong profession if they’re going to be that sensitive and that thin-skinned. They need to be worried about their team and their players, and keeping their mind on what’s going on at their practices, rather than what fans are saying on websites, and on call-in shows, and on social media………that only compounds the situation, and makes all the issues u are dealing with worse. Stoops has long paid too much attention to this kind of thing–if somebody on a sports TV talk show slights the team, or makes a prediction against them, or makes any other kind of comment against them, we are the first to hear a retort to that from Stoops himself if we win the game or do something somebody else said we wouldn’t or couldn’t. And he showed last year how angry and upset he was about NIL and the changes in college FB–and he has spent entirely too much time last year and this year complaining about that. Its part of the game now, Stoops. I may not be crazy about it either–my issue is more of what it seems to be doing to the minds of players, rather than the fact they are receiving compensation. But u still gotta play the games if u are part of the team–so the question becomes do u even want to be a part of the team anymore? Do u want to still play football? I think players have a decision to make and need to take a long hard look at themselves and figure out what they really want–the only way u get the benefits is to play the game and be on the team. So how much competitive spirit do u have? How much do u really want to win? How hard are u willing to work, or want to work? I think over the next few years, we may see a separation or a weeding out of college fb players in terms of these very questions and personal attributes and values. The ones who really don’t want it badly enough may decide it’s not worth it anymore. It would be nice to imagine the sport being left with only the ones who DO want it badly enough! But I think coaches are gonna have to go thru the same process. Do they still want to coach in the game under these new guidelines for players? Do they want to continue dealing with fan criticism? Are they thick-skinned enough to realize and understand that the fan criticism is not personal, that it just comes from a place of love for the team, altho there are times where fan messaging can go over the top and become completely unreasonable. But if u are just critcizing things that pertain to on-the-field, and coaching decisions, that isn’t anything directly aimed at any coach in a personal manner. Seems like after all these years Stoops would have realized that by now. But it seems he takes all the comments to heart. And that was never more evident than last year when he told the fan on the call-in show to pony up. That was just a bad move, and a bad look–and its honestly a wonder there wasn’t a bigger revolt by the fan base over that than there was. Especially considering the fact the very next week they go and blow a 14-0 lead against Missouri and give up 38 unanswered points–AT HOME!! That was major karma that came back on him in that loss. I wish we could get some coaches who just stayed locked in and focused on their football program, or whatever sport it is, and just tuned all of that fan noise out. The fans don’t hire and fire–the AD and administrators do–and THEY are the ones the coaches need to be concerned about pleasing. There’s nothing we can do as fans about any of it, and we can say whatever we want online Abt the team or coach, but it’s not going to affect anything or change anything. I’m just over coaches who wear their damn emotions on their sleeve, and are so thin-skinned—-like I said, it seems the ones with the biggest egos are the ones who are the most sensitive. CAL was the prime example of this. He would try to sell to the press and the fans that he didn’t pay attn to online fan talk, msg boards, call-in shows–yet all he did was lecture the fan base on being "Basketball Bennies". And he couldn’t wait to tell everybody how wrong they were. Remember the press conference after the win at AUB last year? Talk Abt somebody who took everything personal. Mark Pope is a perfect example of somebody who is just going to stay focused on his job, his team, and his work, which is the example all coaches should follow, and they should take a lesson from Neal Brown on his take about fan criticism. The difference with Pope vs CAL tho is Pope completely understands the way the fan base thinks, and the way they get when things aren’t going well–CAL understood it too–but the difference is Pope doesn’t and won’t run from that. He won’t run from the elephant in the room. He will address it in the right way, and actually I could see him using that as motivation to try to get better and to make his team better. That’s the difference between someone who is of a positive outlook on life as a person vs someone who is a constant ball of angst and volatility and ego–CAL always had that chip on his shoulder, and he carried himself in a negative light because of that. With him, it was like he expected everybody to doubt him and second-guess him, so he had the mentality of "come knock this chip off my shoulder–I dare you"—-he couldnt wait to try and go prove somebody wrong. And over time, that’s the way he began treating the KY fanbase–he didn’t start out that way during the first third of his career here–but over time, and definitely by the time bball resumed again after COVID, he was a completely changed person, and from that time on, CAL treated the fan base like we were the enemy. There has never been anybody more petty and more ungrateful than CAL, and his behavior the last 4 yrs was just immature and juvenile. Oh I’m sorry, CAL—I didn’t mean to get PERSONAL ………..Or maybe I did. 😊
Thought you might like and appreciate what Neal had to say
Play like you wanna be @ UK.
Coach like you wanna be @ UK
I’m see pretty uninspired efforts from coaches and players.
Cannot argue with you Grant
There is something missing from all of this disappointment. Something in the locker-room is causing this and the fans and supporters are the last to get clued in. Is there anyone on the Football staff with enough guts to call a spade a spade tell everyone what the problem is. It’s not like these players are just college students anymore. They get PAID to play football for UK. If someone is not meeting their side of the bargain, call them out!