UK football mailbag: Did Mark Stoops start winning back fans with Florida rout?
Finally, a real vibe shift for Kentucky football fans.
In this space a week ago, it was difficult to find any fan who was even slightly more optimistic about the state of the program following the 10-3 win at Auburn. Style points clearly matter, and that performance was too close to the stereotypical Stoops win against a down SEC foe to convince his most vocal critics that Stoops deserved another year in Lexington.
But there were style points aplenty in Kentucky’s 38-7 rout of Florida to snap an 11-game home losing streak against power-conference competition. Yes, the Gators had already fired their coach and had little to play for, but beating Florida still means something for a Kentucky program that previously lost 31 in a row in the series.
When I took to social media in the immediate aftermath of the win to solicit questions and comments for this week’s UK football mailbag, for the first time in months there was some optimism apparent in the responses. There were still multiple fans who said the win changed nothing about their feeling that Stoops needs to go, but the majority were at least open to the idea of UK’s all-time winningest coach earning back their support.
What’s next for Stoops and Kentucky? Here’s a few of the most interesting questions submitted.
@Wildcats_Braves on X: Am I crazy to think 6-6 is now their floor for this season? Three of the last four games, the defense has been stellar, and the offense is continually looking better.
I’ve been on record for several weeks in predicting that Kentucky would enter the Governor’s Cup rivalry game against Louisville in the regular-season finale with bowl eligibility on the line, but even I had not passed the threshold of expecting this team to actually get to six wins before last night. Now, I tend to agree with this suggestion.
Tennessee Tech should not be totally overlooked considering the Golden Eagles are undefeated and ranked fifth nationally in FCS, but an SEC team should always win its FCS game. If Kentucky takes care of business on senior day next week, it then needs to upset either Vanderbilt or Louisville to reach six wins. Both those opponents will likely be favored over Kentucky but looked vulnerable in their most recent games.
Of course, the more people who buy into the idea that Kentucky should reach bowl eligibility the more flack Stoops is going to take if it does not. Even if UK easily dispatches Tennessee Tech next week, back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt and Louisville to close the season would kill any positive momentum built in the last month.
Fritz Skeen on X: Are we (UK) really improving, or is Florida that bad?
Even before the wins against Auburn and Florida it was apparent that Kentucky was steadily improving on offense. The Tennessee loss made it hard to argue the defense was getting better, but the last two weeks add credence to the argument that the Volunteers’ high-octane offense is simply a bad matchup for Kentucky.
As for Florida, this felt like an obvious letdown game for the Gators. Florida pushed Georgia to the wire in the first game after coach Billy Napier was fired, but falling short in that rivalry game always made it more likely players began to let go of the rope with nothing left to play for. With four wins in the last five meetings against the Gators, it’s fair to say Kentucky is the better program right now, but the margin would likely have not been so lopsided without the coaching change weighing on Florida.
That being said, Kentucky did not beat Florida for the first 31 years of my life. The majority of fans old enough to remember the bulk of that losing streak are not jaded enough to take any win over the Gators for granted. Stoops is just the second UK coach to beat Florida five times. This series as much as any shows his success at Kentucky, and Saturday felt like a reminder of what he has done here.
@meecheeraikes_j on X: Doesn’t change much. I’d be fine with Stoops if he’d embrace the offense. When have we ever played with tempo like we did in the Florida game? Normally he’s just milking the clock nonstop.
This is why the way Kentucky beat Florida is as important as the outcome. The wins against Auburn and Florida count exactly the same, but the offensive game plan versus the Gators at least adds some hope that Stoops is willing to adapt his style moving forward. Stoops did essentially shrug off a question about the faster tempo by noting previous attempts to play faster were not as effective because the offense wasn’t getting first downs the way it has recently, but it’s impossible to ignore the stylistic changes on offense since the South Carolina game.
“We haven’t called it scared in the last three, four weeks,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “Bad things are going to happen, but we’re going to just keep moving and moving and moving.”
That feels like a significant philosophical change when so much of the game plans in the Stoops era have been about avoiding the worst-case scenario. It’s clear the staff’s faith in the talent of quarterback Cutter Boley has played a big part in an increased willingness to take risks, but the more success the offense has, the more likely it is for Stoops to keep those changes in the future.
Mike Bear Rogers on X: I have become more frustrated with us playing better. Why did it take so long to recognize who needs to be on the field?
I certainly understand this sentiment, but I think it’s more about the staff figuring out how to play with its available personnel than picking new players. Boley did not look ready when he made his first SEC start of the season at South Carolina, but Hamdan has significantly changed the offensive game plan to play to his strengths since then. Freshman receiver DJ Miller was not playing in the first half of the season because he was hurt. Freshman Cam Miller has shown flashes, but Kentucky blew out Florida without him recording a catch.
On defense, there were a host of new contributors against Florida due to injuries. Those backups deserve credit for stepping up in the moment of need, but that unit’s depth was exposed earlier in the season. It’s a major plus if Kentucky can count on players like Nasir Addison, Cam Dooley, Grant Godfrey, Lorenzo Cowan, Austin Ramsey and Jalen Williams as rotation players in the last three games, but none are going to usurp the players they replaced when everyone is healthy. Development is not instant, and the answer to why those Wildcats were not playing earlier is probably that they were not ready to play yet.
I think it is fair to give a staff some leeway in the transfer portal era — especially on a roster with as much turnover as Kentucky’s had this year — in the time it takes for everything to click. But it’s also fair to point out other programs have adapted much faster to rebuilt rosters than Stoops did this year. If this staff is going to succeed in the current era of college football, it has to be better in both identifying the right transfers and impact freshmen and showcasing them correctly from the start.
The Goblin on Bluesky: Great win. Also, it should be pretty impossible to see Stoops stepping down or being fired now. So… how does he improve talent assessment? Why not take notes from Mark Pope’s analytical and surveying approaches on the matter?
So much of how this season is ultimately perceived is going to come down to what happens against Vanderbilt and Louisville. If Kentucky loses those two games, all the criticism from before the last two wins return. If the Wildcats win one or both, we’re going to have to take a serious look at how many of those criticisms were actually legitimate.
If the strides shown the last two weeks are legitimate, are we sure Kentucky actually has a talent assessment issue? The hit rate on transfer additions last offseason has been very strong overall, and multiple freshmen look like players to build around for the future.
The problem remains for a program like Kentucky without the NIL resources of traditional powers, the staff cannot afford to miss on its biggest investments in the way it appears to have on quarterback Zach Calzada and center Evan Wibberley this year. The good news is there should not be any question about which quarterback to invest in this offseason. If Kentucky can keep Boley, it will not need to worry about improving its evaluation of transfer quarterbacks.
But there will still be holes to fill with many of the 2025 transfers exhausting their eligibility. UK probably will need transfers to at least compete for starting roles at offensive tackle, nose guard, inside linebacker, cornerback and punter, even if all the key players with eligibility remaining return. Stoops has been tight-lipped about their transfer evaluation process, so it’s not really clear how much analytics are going into those decisions already. I hope he opens the door a little more on that process if he decides to return to Kentucky next season.
Kevin Faris on Bluesky: Stoops is looking more attractive to Virginia Tech every day!
The latest Virginia Tech coaching rumors have James Franklin heavily linked to that job, but Stoops certainly is not hurting his candidacy for other positions with the last two wins. It would be much easier for a power-conference program to sell him to its fan base if he is coming off a bowl season at Kentucky. The question now becomes, even if Stoops believes a fresh start elsewhere is best for him and the program — a la John Calipari’s move to Arkansas — how do the financials of such a move work out?
I don’t see why Kentucky would have much motivation to pay even half of Stoops current buyout to entice him to leave if the Wildcats are 6-6 or 7-5 at the end of the regular season, and it’s difficult to imagine Stoops landing a job that pays anywhere close to his current $9 million annual salary.
@Catsfanky74 on X: Got to give Stoops and the team credit for pushing through and making changes where needed. What’s the status on the defensive guys that went down with injuries tonight?
Stoops rarely gives specific injury updates after a game, choosing to wait for further testing before announcing any prognosis publicly, but he did acknowledge after the win that he expected most of the injured players to be out for “a few weeks.” That’s obviously concerning with only three weeks in the regular season left.
I’d be shocked if any of the injured defensive players play against Tennessee Tech. Maybe a few are in uniform for emergency situations in the way injured cornerback DJ Waller apparently was against Florida, but that feels like a game the staff should risk playing backups to help the injured starters heal. But if Kentucky has to play at Vanderbilt without Tavion Gadson, Sam Greene, Alex Afari, Jordan Lovett and Terhyon Nichols it could be a long afternoon against Diego Pavia and the Commodores. That’s another reason to get the backups more reps against Tennessee Tech. They need the experience.