As spring football practice starts, can Mark Stoops and Kentucky rebuild program’s culture?
The next phase of Mark Stoops’ offseason Kentucky football rebuild begins Monday with the start of spring practice.
Since the Wildcats last took the field in a November loss to archrival Louisville that concluded a frustrating 4-8 season, Stoops has made wholesale changes to his roster. There could be at least 15 new starters when the first-team offense and defense line up for the first time in spring practice.
But perhaps even more important than the personnel changes this winter was Stoops’ quest to rediscover the hard-nosed, workmanlike mentality that characterized his program as he built it from 2-10 in his first season to 10 wins in both 2018 and 2021.
“A lot of it had to do with NIL,” former Kentucky safety Zion Childress, a captain on the 2024 team, recently told the Herald-Leader when asked about the cause of last season’s struggles. “A lot of it had to do with lack of accountability around the program. Just like guys just doing whatever they want, not being held accountable for it. That’s honestly the biggest part.
“… But I think from what I’m hearing, they’re getting back to that holding people accountable, just setting the standard at a higher level, and hopefully that just sticks throughout the whole year.”
Childress was not alone in his assessment of what went wrong not only in 2024, but in the two seasons before that still ended with bowl games but failed to meet rising preseason expectations.
Former Wildcat offensive lineman Eli Cox acknowledged the week before the 2024 season finale that the program had failed to adapt to a college football landscape that featured constant roster turnover through the transfer portal and additional locker room tension based on players earning varying levels of name, image and likeness money. His theory was that without as many players a part of the program for four or more years, it had become harder for Stoops to instill the same blue collar mentality that had characterized the 2016 to 2021 teams.
Immediately after the Louisville loss, both the UK players made available for interviews pointed to a lack of leadership in the locker room as an issue that had to be fixed.
“Holding guys accountable for things,” wide receiver Ja’Mori Maclin said. “A lot more discipline from all the guys. I feel like that’s what’s going to help us take the next step.”
“Just being disciplined again, and it really just starts in the weight room,” safety Ty Bryant added. “… I feel like you find discipline in so many different things in life. And really, just like when it comes to the weight room, coming in on time and coming to meetings on time and wearing the proper stuff. I feel like we kind of got lackadaisical as the season went on about that type of stuff.
“But it shouldn’t be the coaches that have their foot on the necks, have their foot on our necks. It should be the players. Player-led teams go farther than ever.”
While both players and coaches agree that the best teams have leaders in the locker room holding each other accountable, Stoops has acknowledged he and his staff fell short in setting the tone last season.
While Stoops has shied away from providing specific information about changes to his approach this winter, it appears the staff has placed more emphasis on getting to know players away from the field. With 20 transfers added to the roster for spring practice, a large portion of the roster is now made up of players the staff did not spend years getting to know during their high school recruiting process.
“Locker rooms are still driven by relationships, and that’ll be critical,” UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart told the Herald-Leader when asked to respond to the perceived lack of accountability within the program last season. “I don’t care what sport it is. Especially when you have 105 (players) in football, it’s a big group of people and they’re only coming together 12 times a year. So, you got to get that.
“That is really, really challenging. The coaches and the staffs that can do that will find success. And that’s where Mark has been really good at. He has always been able to have great relationships with his players, and so he’s obviously wanting to return us to where we want to be and give our fans something they can be excited about and cheer for.”
To be clear, none of the challenges that led to the perceived lack of accountability last season have disappeared.
The constant threat of star players leaving via the transfer portal if their NIL demands are not met remains. The risk of allocating NIL collective budgets to the wrong players is still present. The challenge of finding leadership on a team with so many new faces has only increased.
But Stoops thinks he has found a group of veteran transfers capable of immediately stepping into the leadership void. Unlike a year ago when quarterback Brock Vandagriff and other transfers acknowledged they did not want to step on any toes while proving themselves to their new teammates, especially on offense, there are almost no returning veterans to worry about offending.
Tight end Josh Kattus and offensive guard Jager Burton are the only returning multi-year starters on offense, and Burton now faces a battle to retain his starting job after the addition of Arkansas transfer Joshua Braun. On defense, UK does return all four starters in the secondary and multiple linebackers who have served featured rotation roles, but the Wildcats could still feature seven new starters in the front seven.
“I think with it being my last year of college, I’m not really too worried about stepping on people’s toes,” Washington State transfer defensive lineman David Gusta said. “I’m not really too worried about hurting feelings. And so I’m gonna come in and if I don’t like something, I’m gonna vocalize it.
“Because it’s like you come in and you guys already know there was a little bit of like a lack of culture here. It’s like it was a little too lax. And like, I felt that. But then everybody here has done a great job of just making it a little more tight and not just so loose, everybody so nonchalant. I respect Coach Stoops about that.”
The emphasis was already evident when players were photographed wearing shirts that said “Blue Collar” during winter conditioning.
Former EKU and Murray State head coach Dean Hood, who previously worked as an assistant for Stoops before returning to Lexington as the director of player development last year, has played a lead role in the offseason culture building this winter. Those endeavors figure to continue throughout spring practice and summer workouts.
Even with improved accountability, better performances on the field will be needed to bounce back against a daunting 2025 schedule, but it is difficult to imagine those improved performances coming without fixing the program’s culture first.
“I think it is very important to be very upfront with them, be very clear, define what we’re looking for and hold them to those expectations and them holding themselves to that, to the standards that we set for them,” Stoops said. “And they are doing that. And that’s all we can do: attack each day.
“You could go back probably to my first press conference and I’m saying these same things, but that doesn’t mean they are always going to happen. We know the concentration, the focus has to get back to making sure that we don’t sacrifice in any of these areas.”