UK football struggles show parallels to end of John Calipari era for basketball
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky compares football decline to Calipari era, prompting calls for change.
- Stoops' near-$38M buyout and department debt constrain firing or buyout moves.
- Mark Pope’s success makes Jon Sumrall an even more attractive candidate for UK fans.
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For Kentucky football, the comparisons to the men’s basketball program are ever present.
Since Adolph Rupp outlasted Bear Bryant at Kentucky, the two programs have often been pitted against each other. Three years ago, that tension turned into a public feud between football coach Mark Stoops and then-basketball coach John Calipari after Calipari called for more investment in his program by describing UK as a “basketball school.” Just a few months ago, the dynamic returned in the debate (and secrecy) concerning how UK was splitting its revenue sharing funds between the two programs.
But as the men’s basketball team prepares for a season with Final Four expectations and the pressure on Stoops increases with every football loss, another comparison between the two programs is difficult to ignore.
Less than two years ago the basketball program was at a similar crossroads as the football program faces now, with fans calling for a once-beloved coach to be fired amid sagging results. After initially announcing he would return to UK in 2024, Calipari reversed course by taking a job at Arkansas, offering the type of fresh start for both parties that appeared impossible only a few weeks earlier due to the size of the buyout UK would have owed to fire him.
Now it is Stoops facing calls for change with an almost-$38-million buyout offering job security.
Athletic director Mitch Barnhart was at the center of both decisions.
“I’d like to think I’m a good learner,” Barnhart told the Herald-Leader last week when asked what he learned from the end of Calipari’s tenure. “I’ve been doing it a while.”
Barnhart did not elaborate on any specific lessons he learned from Calipari’s final weeks at Kentucky, but at least a portion of the fan base has clearly latched on to what happened after Calipari left as even more reason to push for change in the football program.
When fans were calling for Calipari to be fired after a first-round loss to No. 14 seed Oakland in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, the hope was national champion coaches Bobby Hurley and Scott Drew could be convinced to take the Kentucky job. When those coaches turned down the job and Barnhart pivoted to BYU coach and UK alum Mark Pope, the initial reviews were negative.
But Pope quickly won over the fan base with an electric speech at his introductory news conference that felt at times like it was written specifically to address fan complaints about the Calipari era. Pope built a competitive roster from scratch through the transfer portal, then returned the Wildcats to the second weekend of the tournament for the first time since 2019 in his first season.
In just year two on the job, Pope has assembled a team that is among the early title favorites.
“You want energy around your program,” Barnhart said when asked about Pope’s impact in basketball. “I think that there’s two ways you get energy: You create it yourself, or you create it in the passion, the wins of your program.
“...It is hard when you’re struggling to create it yourself. You got to go win some games. You got to win some things to create that energy.”
Even the most optimistic of Kentucky football fans is unlikely to dream of a scenario where a coach who has already proven himself to be in the top tier of the sport would be a realistic target for UK, so the expectations for a football search would be different than the basketball one. But Pope’s ability to call on his experience as a UK player has made Tulane coach Jon Sumrall an even more attractive candidate to be Kentucky’s next football coach – whenever the job opens again.
Sumrall played at UK from 2002 to 2004, started his coaching career as a graduate assistant for Rich Brooks at UK in 2005 and later returned to UK as an assistant for Stoops from 2019 to 2021. His connection to the program was strong enough that he returned to coach in the Citrus Bowl at the end of the 2021 season even after being hired as Troy’s head coach.
But Sumrall’s coaching star is rising regardless of his connection to Kentucky.
He is 38-10 in four seasons as a head coach and has Tulane squarely in contention for the playoff spot reserved for the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion. Even if Kentucky were in the market for a new coach this offseason, there is no guarantee Sumrall, who could be in the running for higher-profile openings, would take his alma mater’s offer. And if the Kentucky job is not open in December, there’s a real chance the program will miss its chance to even pursue its star alum.
While Pope has injected much-needed energy in the basketball program, the post-Calipari search offers a clear reminder that the dream candidate does not always take the job; but it also offers proof even the third or fourth choice for the position can bring energy if the right hire is made.
Perhaps the most important parallel between the situations is that change in football may require an agreement from both the UK administration and Stoops that a fresh start is needed in the same way that Calipari had to pursue another job for change to happen in basketball.
Stoops’ contract requires he be paid his buyout in full within 60 days if he is fired without cause. For an athletic department that has taken $141 million in loans from the university to cover a two-year budget shortfall and provide up-front cash to finance a series of facility improvements designed to increase future revenue, that buyout format appears prohibitive.
The 247Sports Virginia Tech affiliate cited anonymous sources in reporting that Stoops was a candidate for the open job there last week, but it is difficult to imagine a power-conference program being able to sell Stoops to its fan base without the current Wildcats rallying for a strong finish. Stoops has repeatedly shot down persistent rumors that he might consider walking away from Kentucky on his own, most recently after the loss at Georgia, but he has at least begun to acknowledge the conversation about his status since the Texas loss.
“I understand how people may feel about me,” he said on his Monday radio show. “That’s warranted. I get it, but our players deserve that kind of atmosphere (that was in Kroger Field for the Texas game), and I appreciate it. They appreciate it.”
Not even two years later, the final days of the Calipari era seem like something of a fever dream.
The Hall of Fame coach first announced he planned to return to UK on his final radio show of the season while acknowledging he had not even met with Barnhart to discuss the future of the program. The next day Calipari and Barnhart had their end-of-season meeting, and UK confirmed a few hours later Calipari would not be fired .
Two days after that, Calipari and Barnhart appeared together in an awkward joint interview with the athletic department-affiliated BBN Tonight show to lay out their vision for the future and changes to Calipari’s recruiting and coaching philosophy. But just more than a week later, news broke that Calipari was in discussions with Arkansas.
All that happened after the 2023-24 basketball season had ended. The current football season is only at its halfway point.
If you’re looking for lessons from the end of the Calipari era to be applied to football, “nothing is certain until it is” seems a good place to start.
This story was originally published October 22, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
