Vince Marrow (Larry Vaught Photo)
No one tries to be more enthusiastic about the Kentucky football program than associate coach/recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow.
That attitude is one reason he’s been such a dynamic recruiter for UK and head coach Mark Stoops and why despite the current 3-5 record the overall talent level at Kentucky has been upgraded.
Marrow filled in for Stoops Monday night on the head coach’s radio show because Stoops was in Ohio for his mother’s funeral.
Not surprisingly, Marrow asked Kentucky fans to try and find a way to stick with the team after a caller asked the associate coach for a BBN pep talk.
“Just keep supporting and believing. I’m very disappointed in some of these losses. When people criticize us … I’m like Stoops. Where we’re from? We’re big boys, we can take the criticism,” Marrow said.
“I really feel bad for our fans.And I’m telling you this, we will get this thing going. I think you’ll see some good things coming down the line. Just keep supporting and you’ll start seeing a team that you love playing hard and physical and playing for this state.
“I can say this wholeheartedly: We feel the fans, we hear them. I love these fans, they’re the best in the country. Just keep supporting us and see what happens.”
Honest and refreshing comments from Marrow. No excuses about injuries or anything else. He also admitted he got the frustration fans have, and should have, over UK’s play.
Kentucky’s freshmen class had seven four-star players and was a top 25 national class. The 2025 class is again a top 25 class loaded with some talented prospects. However, the offense has been unproductive most of the season under first-year offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan who is being heavily criticized by some fans.
“Bush Hamdan is a really sharp young man. We already had our players picked before we hired him, and sometimes as a coordinator, you have to fit what the personnel is,” Marrow said on the radio show. “Just give Bush Hamdan some time, because he just got in here. We’re playing with a lot of guys, a lot of young guys, a lot of guys are banged up and they’re coming back.”
5 Responses
I’ve had many fans tell me they are done with Kentucky football. Some said this year and some said for good.
It’s just not a good environment.
The coaches don’t care.
The players don’t care and play stupid.
Loud rap music is played the entire game.
Fans are either puking or fighting each other.
I keep saying that I’ve had enough but Ill never leave the Cats. Disgusted as I am and have always been a UK guy. It’s just the way we are built.
BTW. Many of us out here in fan-land have been with the Cats since the coaching staff was playing pee wee football. 11 – 0 seasons are not in our expectation set, but expecting a decent product to hit the field on Saturdays is. We’re getting close to the end of the season when the really good players are thinking about the NFL draft and maybe not stepping up when the playing gets tough to protect their draft chances. If that is the case, dismiss them from the team. We may get beat 100 – 0 but it is with players that want to play.
Kentucky is my team, our team, but we deserve better! Barnhart didn’t have the stones to get rid of Calipari, but BBN did! Now it’s time for Stoops to leave and start the rebuild of our football program.
Guarantee this coming winter, Stoops, if he hasn’t resigned, will be looking for another new OC. Hamdan will undoubtedly leave, and will continue the pattern of zero continuity for the players year-to-year within the offensive side of the team. Honestly, this program may be in disaster mode between this DEC and next summer, because they may be faced with a mass exodus of personnel to the draft and the transfer portal. We may be lucky to fill out a roster next season. I mean, imagine how unhappy Barion Brown has to be right now. We don’t even hear his name called anymore, and it has been that way almost every game this season. Key has been the only star talent that has been remotely involved–but u have the best individual star talent on your team, and what i have no doubt would be one of the best in the SEC if utilized correctly, or was playing in a system that had a functioning offense and a coaching staff with a pulse. I guarantee any other SEC team, If they had BBrown, would have him playing like an All-American. Any coaching staff with half a brain would figure a way to get the ball in Brown’s hands, especially when u aren’t getting any kind of production from anyone else on the team, except Key. And u would think with having BOTH of those guys in our lineup, that one could take the pressure off another. U have both Key and Brown in your first string-offense, any half-decent OLINE and QB could figure out a way to make that work, at least some of the time–even if u aren’t winning alot of games, u would think u could put some points up on the board. This is an all-systems meltdown in every phase and every area of the team: players, coaches, it has become a dumpster fire, sorry to say……and it was shown the second game of the season against SCAR–I knew then we were most likely finished–the Ole Miss win gave me some partial renewed hope–but even in that game, their offense wasn’t that good, and let’s face it, with our offense, we run a 4th and 8 from our own 20 on the road against a ranked SEC opponent down 4 nine times out of 10, well we happened to hit on the one time we would be successful with that. And it takes a one time in 100 kind of pass play to even be successful with it–we don’t have the ability to line up and go for like a 10-15 yd pass play just to get the first down and keep the drive going, no it takes a 70-yd miracle bomb to get it done. We got lucky as hell to win that game, and Lane Kiffin knew it, and that’s why he was so pissed afterward, and why he dwelled on Stoops going out-of-character and taking a page out of Kiffin’s own book—he knew we didn’t really deserve to win–he knew we actually are not the BETTER TEAM. But sometimes the better team does not win. That was one of those times. And the difference between us and TN: they are as fired up for their game with us as if it was Alabama coming to town, which amazes me, u would think they would have to fight with overlooking us and taking us for granted, but they know THEY CANNOT LOSE THAT GAME, OR IT ENDS THEIR SEASON. and that’s what successful winning programs do–they have the right attitude and right mentality for a game they could easily overlook, especially being at home. But Heupel and Co are better than that, and he’s a damn good coach, I wish we had him! Its not so much HIM, its his system, I wish we could get somebody with an offensive imagination, with an offensive identity, similar to what Heupel has. He has been able to get his guys to buy into that system and the culture he has created there, and he did it right from the start, going back to 2021. It was instant success and instant winning. And now this latest match with TN is going to look a lot like the 44-6 shellacking we took down there two yrs ago. I highly doubt we get any more than 10, and we may not even get to 6. IDK if I should be risky enough to give us more than one FG. Up to the Vandy game, I made the statement that Alex Raynor is the best player on our team this year, and the only source of offense that we have–but since the Vandy game, we don’t even have our special teams scoring to count on anymore. Maybe the first shutout of the season coming? I would have nvr believed that at the start of the season, not that I would have picked us to win at TN, but I would have never entertained the thought of a shutout for us in any game this year–lets face it, we ain’t been that far from it a couple of times–rememeber, SCAR held us to 6, and GA, Vandy, and AUB held us to 12, 13, and 10. We have basically averaged one TD per game against SEC competition. That’s not that far away from it. U know it has gotten really bad when u wish u could just go back to Eddie Gran. But I’m telling u, Eddie Gran was the only OC Mark Stoops ever fully trusted. He actually trusted Coen too in 2021 with Levis in a way he nvr trusted anyone else, and he didn’t even trust Coen the same way his second time around! But the relationship he had with Gran made that trust in him as an OC diff from the trust in all the others because there was some kind of personal connection there that Stoops did not have with the others. But one of the best offenses and best coaching jobs Stoops ever had and did here was in 2019 when Bowden played QB. The offense they installed and ran for him actually worked, and they might as well go back to that now, because Stoops has clearly demonstrated, with the exception of one year, that he has not been able to figure out a passing offense here at KY–they have nvr been able to throw the ball down the field, keep the chains moving, and put sustained drives together like all the other SEC teams have demonstrated the ability to do at one time or another. We consistently rank last in the conf and in the bottom 10-20 in the country every year in passing yards, passing offense, pts per game, number of plays, time of possession……this is an almost decade-long pattern that has nvr gotten any better. Its time for a change with UK FB just like it was with UK BBALL–the SEC has changed, and the game has changed, so what better time for KY to just start over completely from the ground up? They need somebody with some kind of idea on offensive philosophy, imagination, and identity and who will know how to make it work in the SEC. I would honestly take Neal Brown right now–not that he would be my first choice of best FB coaches, but as far as realistic choices of somebody we could actually get and would want to come here–just like in bball, Brown is a former player who has already been here as an OC, and it was Stoops’ first year, so we can’t even fairly evaluate anything Brown did here that one year–it was mostly Joker’s players–and he had MAC-level talent to work with. Brown would at least understand the position KY has trying to climb in the SEC, and he understands what Stoops has done here, and the way he has recruited, and the kind of culture he has built up–I think Brown would be a solid choice who would be worth taking a chance on, unless a bigger name we wouldn’t think Abt expressed an interest in the job–i think Brown would be one of the most realistic logical candidates if Stoops were to step down at the end of the year. And I really hope that he does, and I think he should. And I think there is a strong possibility of him doing just that. I think the football program needs a fresh start in all phases just like the bball program got. TN 52 KY 3