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Kentucky coach Mark Stoops has not made a secret of his feelings about the distractions NIL and other potential changes are having on college athletics and the toll it takes on coaches like him time-wise.
During Wednesday’s SEC coaches teleconference, Stoops gave a surprisingly honest answer when asked if he ever talks with other coaches about the way the dynamics of college sports are changing.
“We do want to be part of the solution and try to help. It seems like it’s completely out of our hands, but we do try to get involved and try to help, discuss it, and if nothing else, maybe vent to each other,” said Stoops.
“But again, I’ll keep that to ourselves, because I don’t want that to be any headline because everybody will say we make too much money to complain, and that’s true. But we are looking for solutions to just try to help the game, just get some common sense approaches to help the future of college football.”
He’s right about no sympathy when he’s making $9 million per year. But I think he’s also right about more common sense would be a welcome addition to the changing college sports landscape.
Stoops shared an interesting story about a recent conversation with one of his players about NIL.
“Heck, I had a long conversation with a player yesterday that is just a phenomenal young man and a great human being and is frustrated by the way things are,” Stoops said Wednesday. “He wants them to go back.
“If you asked him, he’d give the (NIL) money back and go back and just go old school and build the camaraderie and have a team and things of that nature.”
Sounds great but guessing not many players would be in favor of giving the money back to help team chemistry. However, money can cause issues and that will be a continuing problem for roster building and retention.
“It’s not just us. It’s not just coaches. It’s not us coaches whining or crying like people are going to say, and I’m not doing that right nowm” Stoops said. “ t’s just a fact. There’s a lot of moving pieces that we all have to make sure we’re staying up with.”
Stoops is 17-18 in the last three seasons with this year’s 3-6 record and down to 7-16 in SEC play, including 0-4 at home this year.
“Clearly, there’s been a few things that I could identify that I didn’t do a very good job with in the past couple years,” Stoops said.
That’s big. Most coaches don’t admit publicly when they are wrong. That also does not sound like a coach ready to walk away from his job.
“I’m not making an excuse, I just didn’t do a good enough job,” Stoops said. “I have to do better in certain areas. And I don’t want to say what that is, because I don’t want anybody to think it’s an excuse.”
10 Responses
It’s good to recognize you’ve missed some areas, but after a decade of experience seems some of those issues should have been identified & fixed
The wheels came off when OC Scangerelo (sp?) was hired & brought in “complex schemes”). Stoops should have seen the signs of confusion in Spring practice and definitely by August. The fans saw it immediately after 1 game and then it was more evident game after game. Coen could not fully recover the offense after it had been disrupted and disorganized.
UK offense has never recovered from the complex scheme demolition. If it’s complex for the QB, then it’s complex for the OL, the receivers, the RB’s.
There has been a MAJOR PROBLEM between Stoops & OC’s. It is TOTALLY INEXCUSABLE.
3 seasons becoming a heap of collapse is way too many to tolerate.
Identifying your mistakes is the first step in correction.
Sounds like Coach Stoops is experiencing the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" syndrome. Well, the only thing he can do now is take what he has learned and apply it to the future of this team so those mistakes aren’t repeated. A lot of money to pay for OJT.
Fair points RJohn
Funny thing about everything he said is.every team faces problems with nil but you don’t hear any of the other coaches talking about it every week. Stoops is trying to blame the same thing that every single team has because of nil. He is constantly talking about nil but seemed to do pretty good in the transfer portal. He brought in guys he thought would contribute and they haven’t done nothing. The only transfer that has actually "earned" his money is POP on defense. Every other transfer has sucked majorly this year. Remember when we got DJ Waller from Michigan all I heard is well the secondary is fixed. The same thing with Chip at running back. He was supposed to be a game changer. What about Brock V who alot of people said is a great quarterback. I actually think as bad as Leary was he’s actually a better quarterback then Brock is. I doubt at the seasons end that Brock would get picked up in the NFL draft. I doubt that even he gets a little better that he gets drafted. He just doesn’t do anything very good. Like some QBs have at least one thing they are very good at and I don’t see nothing that he does that’s very good. He makes bad decisions he’s not very athletic and he thinks much more than he should. You can tell he’s making decisions in his mind as he’s playing. He Telegraphs everything.
You have to have synergy between QB, the offensive coaching staff, and the head coach in terms of style and scheme that makes for complimentary football. Best example in Stoops era is true dual threat QB TERRY WILSON 2018 season.
For UK to be consistent in the SEC the program has to maintain this IDENTITY and be complimentary in this order – 1) DEFENSE; 2) Special Teams; 3) Offense – OLine, Running Game, Redzone Efficiency.
UK Football is not a stair step job. EX. Stoops, most successful coach in program history, flirting with TAMU was a mistake. Especially when the momentum had/has him headed toward a statue outside Kroger Field.
Good points KD
KD, you bring up Terry Wilson, and he seemed to be the kind of QB that thrived under Stoops, but then Stoops goes out and recruits nothing but pocket passers. If you want a dual threat, recruit dual threat.
Glad he figured it out after 12 years at 9mil. But, lets face it, he can play the same tape over and over again, nothing changes other then his salary. It is the same every year, big expectations, no results, same bad coaching in game time, no adjustments at halftime, and does not no how to use the clock. I say get a good high school coach at 1million, and the other 8million go to the players. A high school coach could not do any worse.
Has been very disappointing this year Mont
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