Kentucky football fires all-time winningest coach Mark Stoops after 13 seasons
After insisting Saturday there was “0% chance” he was walking away, Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops is out as Kentucky football coach after all.
“I want to thank Mark for his dedication and leadership over the past 13 years, and as importantly, the friendship that is marked by walking these journeys together,” UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart said in a statement posted on the school’s website Monday morning. “His tenure transformed the program and reset expectations. His time here was filled with memorable victories, a historic run of consecutive bowl appearances, and a commitment to developing young men both on and off the field.
“We move forward committed to build upon the strong foundation that has been laid and to pursue excellence relentlessly.”
ESPN first reported the plan to to fire Stoops Sunday night.
Barnhart’s statement did not specify how the $37.7 million owed Stoops would be paid. Per the terms of his contract, UK would owe Stoops that sum within 60 days of firing him, but On3 reported Sunday Stoops was willing to agree to UK paying his buyout over multiple years.
The departure ends one of the best runs for a coach in program history but comes after a four-year downturn in results. After inheriting a 2-10 program in 2012, Stoops returned the Wildcats to a bowl game in 2016. From there, he piled up 82 wins, four bowl victories and two 10-win seasons.
“It is critically important that we are competitive and successful in football,” UK president Eli Capilouto said in a statement. “That is our goal. It is our focus. We intend to be successful.”
Before Stoops’ tenure, Kentucky had not won 10 games in a season since 1977. Stoops ended that streak with a Citrus Bowl victory over Penn State in 2018. He added a second 10-win season in 2021 with a Citrus Bowl win over Iowa, but the NCAA later vacated the victories from that season due to a scandal involving football players being paid for hours they did not work in university hospital patient transport jobs. The investigation found no evidence Stoops knew of the rules violations.
Stoops was unable to build on the momentum of the second 10-win season though.
Amid rumors that he was a candidate for openings at Nebraska and Auburn, Stoops signed a contract extension that made him one of the 10 highest-paid coaches in the country at $9 million per year in November 2022. The day after he signed the contract, UK lost at home to Vanderbilt, snapping the Commodores’ 26-game SEC losing streak.
Since Stoops signed that extension, Kentucky is 17-24. Last season, Kentucky posted its worst record (4-8, 1-7) since Stoops’ first UK team went 2-10. The Wildcats did improve by one win with a 5-7 season in 2025 but were blown out in back to back games against Vanderbilt and a shorthanded Louisville team with a chance to clinch bowl eligibility.
Kentucky lost 11 straight games against power-conference competition before an upset win at Auburn on Nov. 1. Both its SEC wins in 2025 came against schools that fired their coach.
The 4-8 2024 season came after Stoops appeared to be on the verge of leaving UK for Texas A&M only to announce his return after a vocal portion of Aggies fans took to social media to voice their displeasure with the hire. Stoops quickly moved past that saga by building hype around a 12-man transfer class, but only a couple of those transfers ended up panning out.
Stoops appeared to make significant changes to the portal evaluation process the following winter, signing a 24-man transfer class that was built around veteran players who had shined at smaller programs rather than players Kentucky had lost to traditional powers out of high school. The hit rate on the transfer class was better than the year before but was not enough to account for all the needs on a roster with so many holes.
Stoops had not been shy about going public with frustration about the toll raising money for UK’s NIL collective had taken on him since the NCAA allowed players to be paid for endorsements, but in July he expressed optimism that the advent of revenue sharing between athletic departments and athletes would level the playing field for programs like Kentucky.
“I’ve been on the record of saying it’s been much better,” Stoops said at SEC Media Days. “I’ve really greatly appreciated the help Mitch Barnhart and his staff. Our fundraising arm of the institution has done an amazing job of helping, and I greatly appreciate that. And it let me, kind of, put my concentration back on the team. And I’m grateful for that.”
Stoops has remained adamant that the 2025 Wildcats were better than the 2024 team even as the results offered little evidence of improvement.
After Incarnate Word quarterback transfer Zach Calzada was benched in September, much of the hope for the team centered around the potential for redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley. With Boley at the helm, the passing attack finally showed signs of life, highlighted by a 38-7 blowout of Florida, but the offense struggled again against Vanderbilt and Louisville.
With every loss, more fans called for change in the program, even as it appeared Kentucky could not afford to pay Stoops’ buyout (just less than $38 million) within 60 days of him being fired as his contract specified. When a Lexington sports radio host claimed before the Georgia game that Stoops had approached the UK administration last season to signal his willingness to negotiate a smaller buyout, Stoops adamantly denied the report.
Asked again after the Louisville loss if he planned to return to Kentucky, Stoops doubled down on those comments.
“I’m going to be here as far as I’m concerned,” Stoops said. “Now, I can’t control decisions that are made. You’re asking me. Like I said, zero. Zero means zero; 0% chance I walk.”
That denial was noteworthy due to the perception that Stoops would need to negotiate the format or amount of his buyout in order for Kentucky to make a coaching change. Even when Penn State fired James Franklin and LSU fired Brian Kelly for larger buyouts than UK would owe Stoops earlier this season, those buyouts were due in monthly installments over the course of the contract and subject to an offset by any money the coach made in his next job. Franklin negotiated his Penn State buyout to just $9 million when he was hired by Virginia Tech.
There were times during the season Stoops seemed to acknowledge the reality of his situation.
“I understand how people may feel about me,” he said on his Monday radio show after a heartbreaking overtime loss to Texas. “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.”
Sizable crowds turned out for the Tennessee and Texas game, but the attendance was boosted by a large number of visiting fans making the trip to Lexington. By the start of the fourth quarter of the blowout loss to Tennessee, the vast majority of the fans still in the stadium were wearing orange.
After the 56-34 loss, Stoops again acknowledged the increasing pressure on him while still voicing optimism for the future.
“I understand,” he said. “It’s a results business, and the results have not been there. For me, I can’t get caught up and worried about all that. I’m frustrated. I hurt for our team. I hurt for the fans. There’s a lot of people who invest a lot, including all of us. I understand that.
“The fans and anybody else has every right to be frustrated, mad, whatever it is. But for myself, I hurt for the team. We’ve invested a lot. Again, I think we are getting better in certain areas, but it was a tough matchup for us tonight.”
Stoops and the Wildcats gained confidence from three straight wins over Auburn, Florida and Tennessee Tech. In an interview with The Athletic following the Tennessee Tech win, Stoops reiterated his stance that he would “never cave.” One day after that story was published, Kentucky was embarrassed by Vanderbilt, ruining much of the positive momentum built during the winning streak.
Still, on the Monday before the Louisville game, Stoops spoke like a coach preparing to undertake another offseason rebuild, spending much of his weekly news conference talking about the realities created by the revenue sharing and NIL budget available to him.
“There are some schools that have a boatload of money to buy high school kids,” he said. “I need to make sure those kids can help us win next year. I only have so much money. You have to get your team, you have to get fillers for next year, and then you have to be able to recruit high school kids. There is a lot to it.”
As Louisville dominated Kentucky despite missing its four scholarship running backs and top receiver, the idea of a Stoops return in 2026 became more difficult to imagine.
Stoops promised after the loss the young nucleus on his roster gave him hope for the future, but he did not provide any specifics about a vision for that future that would excite fans.
“We’ve been in tough spots before, and we’re gonna continue to improve,” Stoops said. “I mean, I love the young players we have on our team. I have to get more. We have to get more depth. We have to be good across the board to play the schedule that we do.”
Those issues will exist for Kentucky’s next coach, too.
The new staff will need to convince Boley and any other young Wildcats it wants to build around to remain, then fill several holes on the roster through the transfer portal.
Tulane coach Jon Sumrall, a former UK linebacker and assistant coach, would have been the logical top target for Kentucky, but he has was hired by Florida Sunday. Auburn and Arkansas also filled their openings with American Athletic Conference coaches (Ryan Silverfield and Alex Golesh) who could have been candidates for Kentucky on Sunday.
Even with Sumrall off the board and other SEC jobs filled, Kentucky will need to move quickly to land a new coach in time to start building a 2026 roster before the transfer portal opens in January. Current UK players will have an additional a 15-day window to enter the portal beginning five days after the new coach is hired. Several possible candidates, like Kentucky native and Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein, could have especially congested December calendars while they work for playoff teams.
Barnhart said in his statement he has begun a national search to find a coach “with proven coaching results and a vision for success for Kentucky.”
This story was originally published November 30, 2025 at 10:00 PM.