After latest UK loss, Mark Stoops vows, ‘There’s zero chance I’m walking away’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Stoops denies negotiating an exit last season and vows there’s zero chance.
- Radio report triggered fan unrest amid UK’s financial limits on buyouts.
- Kentucky falls to 2-3; offense shows flashes while defense struggles.
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Gameday: No. 12 Georgia 35, Kentucky 14
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Georgia football game at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga.
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The latest blowout loss for Kentucky football might have only added more fuel to the fire for a coaching change, but Mark Stoops is not ready to accept defeat.
One day after a radio report that he had approached the UK administration about negotiating an exit last year was widely shared on social media, Stoops was unequivocal about his status following a 35-14 loss at Georgia.
“I hate to give anything like that legs,” Stoops said when asked by the Herald-Leader about the report. “There’s zero (truth). I told you last year, right? I mean, you guys could write it and say what you want about me, but, I mean, I told you there’s zero chance I’m walking away. I mean, zero. There’s no quit in me.”
Alan Cutler, a retired Lexington television reporter who now hosts a talk radio show on the Lexington ESPN radio affiliate, reported on his show this week, citing unnamed sources, that Stoops approached UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart last season about leaving Lexington but the two sides had not reached a separation agreement.
“Sources are telling me that Mark Stoops went to Mitch Barnhart after the Tennessee game and said he wanted out and he would negotiate the buyout,” Cutler said on his show.
That report was seized on by the portion of UK fans calling for Stoops to be fired in the wake of widespread reporting that UK is in no position financially to pay the near $38 million buyout that would be owed Stoops if he were fired Dec. 1.
A source within the UK administration denied that report to the Herald-Leader before the game Saturday, and Stoops was even more adamant in his denial when asked about it in his postgame news conference.
“That’s unequivocally, 100% false, and anybody says otherwise is lying,” he said. “I don’t want to address that crap no more.”
The only way for Stoops to silence the calls for his departure is to start winning games, though.
There were some signs of progress for the offense at Georgia as redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley completed 25 of 41 passes for 225 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, but the defense had no answers for Georgia’s offense early, allowing the Wildcats to fall into a 14-0 hole before their second possession.
Georgia led 35-7 at the end of the third quarter and played the majority of the fourth quarter with backups.
“No one’s going to feel sorry for us, and they shouldn’t,” defensive coordinator Brad White said. “We all signed up for this, and we’ve got to find a way to dig ourselves out of this. All we can do is go back to work. It sounds really cliché, but I don’t know what else you can say.
“And the thing that I appreciate about this group more than maybe any that we’ve had, is that it’s not a finger-pointing group. It’s not. They just want to work.”
Kentucky heads into its second bye week of the season at 2-3 with two more games against top-15 opponents looming in October. There appear to games on the schedule in November where the Wildcats have a more realistic chance of being competitive, but with each passing week a turnaround looks less likely.
UK has not scored more than two offensive touchdowns in 12 consecutive games against Power Four conference competition. The tackling issues that plagued the defense at times in its first two SEC games were rampant again in Athens.
The negativity evident by Friday’s uproar about the radio report continues to grow.
“At the end of the day, if you’re a grown man, you got to realize nothing (outside) of this locker room matters,” Boley said. “And I feel like we got a lot of grown men on this team. Nothing else on Saturdays except these guys matters. I mean, literally nothing. I think these, all these guys know that, and we just keep pushing and keep getting better individually.”
Barnhart, who watched Stoops’ news conference from the back of the media room but departed from the area, as normal, before reporters could approach him for a response, has given no indication he is considering a coaching change.
Stoops reminded reporters that the season is not even at its halfway point and noted that Kentucky is not the only team that must deal with negativity. Like he did after last week’s loss at South Carolina, Stoops stressed the importance of staying positive even as the negative results pile up.
“You got to have the right pieces in place,” Stoops said. “We’re not exactly where we want to be. We’re better than we’ve been in the recent past, but we’re still not where we want to be.
“We’re missing a few pieces, but we’ll keep on working.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2025 at 5:13 PM.