Mark Stoops’ job assessment at Kentucky includes a generational divide
Heading into Mark Stoops’ 12th season there appears to be a bit of a generation gap when it comes to opinions concerning the Kentucky football coach.
Their frame of reference ruled by recency bias, younger UK football fans are a bit frustrated with the 57-year-old coach, who is coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons.
Meanwhile, the older generation of Kentucky fans, having suffered through persistent strings of losing seasons, have more of an appreciation for the job the former Florida State defensive coordinator has done since arriving on the Lexington campus.
Question: Who’s right and who’s wrong?
Answer: I’d be willing to bet Stoops would tell you there’s some truth in both arguments.
“I’m not interested in sitting here and existing,” the head coach said at the program’s annual Wildcat Kickoff Luncheon on Monday. “And I’m not interested in exiting.”
As for my sizing up of Stoops’ stay in the bluegrass, I fall on the old fan side. I am an OG, after all. I go way back. Way, way back.
Charlie Bradshaw was the Kentucky coach when I saw my first UK football game at Stoll Field in 1967. “Hard Charles” resigned a year later after going 25-41-4. I remember John Ray’s 10 wins in 43 tries, Fran Curci’s highs and lows. I covered the final three years of Jerry Claiborne before his retirement in 1989.
I chronicled Bill Curry’s disappointing 26-52 tenure over seven years. I was there for Hal Mumme and the Air Raid, both the good (Tim Couch and Craig Yeast) and the bad (NCAA probation and Mumme’s firing). I remember Guy Morriss’ two-year turn before his departure to Baylor.
In a 20-year span from 1984 through 2003, Kentucky football’s record was 95-130-1 for a winning percentage of 42.2.
In a 20-year span from 2004 through last season, Kentucky football’s record was 121-128 for winning percentage of 48.6.
You can make the case the Cats have been better than those numbers suggest. After a rocky start while dealing with the probation from the previous staff, Rich Brooks built a foundation that upset eventual national champion LSU and reached four consecutive bowls.
We’ll slide past Joker Phillips’ three-year struggle. Stoops is the winningest coach in program history with a 73-65 mark. The bar here is not the highest. Still, the Cats have been to a record eight straight bowl games, have recorded the school’s first winning conference record since 1977, posted a pair of 10-win seasons and produced 28 NFL draft picks, including 13 selected in the first three rounds.
Don’t forget that Stoops was the first Kentucky coach to beat Florida since 1986, the first to win in Gainesville since 1979. (The Cats are riding a three-game winning streak over the Gators.) He’s the first UK coach to win in Knoxville since 1984. He’s the first coach with multiple wins over the Volunteers since Curci.
Is it enough? Of course not. Not counting newcomers Oklahoma and Texas, Kentucky remains just one of four schools that have never reached the SEC Championship Game. Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt are the three others.
After a 5-3 record in SEC play in 2021, the Wildcats stumbled to 3-5 the last two campaigns. That includes two frustrating losses to South Carolina, a 44-6 road loss to Tennessee, a 24-21 home loss to Vanderbilt and a 51-13 drubbing by Georgia last season.
Georgia remains the one nut Stoops has yet to crack. Georgia’s margin of victory in its 11 wins against Stoops: 21.3 points. UK hasn’t scored more than 17 points against Kirby Smart’s defense since 2016.
And now here we are where the most important question about Kentucky’s 2024 season revolves around a former Georgia Bulldog, that being transfer quarterback Brock Vandagriff.
And now here we are with traditional grid powers Oklahoma and Texas as the newest members in the SEC clubhouse, with no more East-West divisional play, with the complexities of NIL and revenue sharing and a 12-team College Football Playoff.
“We want more,” Stoops said at SEC Football Media Days earlier this month.
Kentucky football fans, both young and old, can agree on that.
