Mark Stoops issues a challenge to Kentucky Wildcats football fans
At his annual spring practice-preview news conference Monday at Kroger Field, Mark Stoops made some news.
The Kentucky head football coach announced that his older brother, Mike, would not be leaving his role as an analyst for Nick Saban at Alabama to become the UK safeties coach.
That move had been widely rumored, but Mark Stoops said his brother decided to stay at Bama with an eye toward again becoming a defensive coordinator.
UK’s Stoops announced that starter Josh Paschal would be moving from outside linebacker to a down defensive lineman in 2020.
Once again, the Kentucky coach expressed the belief that starting quarterback Terry Wilson’s torn patellar tendon would be fully healed by the time the 2020 season begins.
However, the most interesting thing Stoops said came in response to a question about the “changed culture” of Kentucky football. The UK head man took that as an impetus to issue a challenge to UK football fans.
“I do appreciate the support (Kentucky has gotten),” Stoops said. “I want to see it go to another level. I ask the fans to continue to support us, to continue to buy season tickets, to make that investment. ... We need the fans. We need the people in the upper decks. We need the stadium full.”
For my money, one of the most intriguing facets of Kentucky’s 2020 football season is going to take place at the turnstiles.
In my adult life, I do not ever recall UK football fans being as optimistic about the future as they seem right now.
That is what Kentucky winning 32 overall games, 16 of them SEC contests, over the past four seasons and back-to-back bowl victories over traditional football powers Penn State and Virginia Tech has created.
You probably have to go back to 1978, when Kentucky was coming off a Peach Bowl-winning season (1976) and a 10-1 year (1977), to find the last time there was this much confidence in the future of UK football.
Yet still to be determined is whether the current fan enthusiasm is going to show up in the Kroger Field attendance figures in 2020.
In 2015, the season in which a renovation of the venue formerly known as Commonwealth Stadium was unveiled, Kentucky announced crowds in excess of 60,000 fans for six of eight home games. On the field, that season started strong (4-1) but petered out (5-7).
However, over the four seasons since — all of them bowl years — there have only been six home games total with more than 60,000 fans in a stadium whose official capacity is now 61,000.
In 2016, there was one such game — Georgia (62,507).
In 2017, there was one such game — Florida (62,945).
In 2018, three games drew in excess of 60,000 — Mississippi State (60,037), South Carolina (63,081) and Georgia (63,543).
Last year, there was again only one Kroger Field game that drew more than 60,000 — Florida (63,076).
During the not-so-distant past, the kind of uptick Stoops has produced in Kentucky’s on-field fortunes would have resulted in a run of sellouts in the stands.
During UK’s five-year bowl streak (2006-10) under Rich Brooks and Joker Phillips, there were 60,000 fans or more for 32 of 36 Kentucky home games (in a pre-renovation stadium whose capacity was some 67,000).
Part of what has changed is particular to UK. When the university re-ticketed its entire football stadium as a result of the 2015 renovation, some fans were forced to move from seats that had been in their families since the venue opened in 1973.
That created some hard feelings that have not been quick to heal.
Kentucky is also not immune to the broader national trends — high-definition TVs, improved home experience, high ticket and concessions prices — that have exerted a downward pull on live attendance at many major sporting events across the country.
What we are going to find out this fall is whether fan optimism — and the appeals from a coach whose approval rating with his fan base is presently sky high — can overcome all that has dragged down Kentucky football home attendance since 2015.
“When I say it takes all of us (for UK football to succeed), please don’t take that as a B.S. cliche’ — it’s the truth,” Stoops says. “It takes a great investment by a lot of people to be consistently successful in the SEC. And that’s what we want to do.
“So I have to challenge other people (outside the Kentucky program) to continue to invest in (UK football). Because we need it. I appreciate what you do already, and ask for more.”
