For UK football to thrive in 2021, Mark Stoops has to overcome a lingering bugaboo
In these dog days of summer, the worries that Mark Stoops must surmount are multiple.
It would be a positive if the Kentucky head football coach could prevail on the adults working in his program to stop getting arrested (I’m old enough to remember when it was the players you worried about getting in trouble during the offseason).
Like all UK head coaches, Stoops has to fret over whether the Wildcats’ athletics department is up to speed with the new reality of a college sports world where players have the right to make money off their fame.
When the Kentucky coach looks ahead to the 2021 season, one reality should move front and center: The same factor that cost UK a winning season in 2020 is apt to determine how good a year the Wildcats have in 2021, too.
A season ago, losses to two head coaches in their first years at their schools — Lane Kiffin of Mississippi and Eli Drinkwitz at Missouri — cost the Cats (5-6) their fifth straight winning season.
During the coming year, UK will face four head men making their debuts with their teams — Louisiana Monroe’s Terry Bowden; South Carolina’s Shane Beamer; Tennessee’s Josh Heupel and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea.
How the Cats perform in those games, especially vs. the three SEC first-year coaches, will go a long way in determining whether Stoops and troops can produce a season similar to Kentucky’s 10-3 breakthrough in 2018.
In spite of his mostly estimable work as Kentucky head coach, Stoops since becoming top Cat in 2013 is a so-so 11-11 vs. coaches in their first season with their teams. Even since UK’s five-year bowl streak began in 2016, Stoops is only 9-7 vs. first-year head men.
As a rule, one would like to think an established, veteran coach — which Stoops (49-50 overall at UK; 37-26 since 2016) now is — would have an advantage in games vs. head men who are new to their programs.
Let’s stipulate, not all such games are equal.
Going against a first-year Kirby Smart in 2016 after he inherited a 9-3 Georgia team from Mark Richt is not the same thing on the “should be a win meter” as facing a head coach who has taken over a program that is coming off a winless year.
A season ago, UK went 2-2 vs. coaches in their first year with their teams.
In an impressive 24-2 throttling of Mississippi State, Kentucky grounded the Mike Leach version of the Air Raid and ruined the ex-UK assistant’s return to Lexington.
The Cats also pounded South Carolina and interim head man Mike Bobo 41-18 in last year’s regular-season finale. Bobo was helming the Gamecocks’ program after the in-season sacking of Will Muschamp.
However, Kentucky’s 42-41 overtime home loss to Kiffin and Ole Miss in a game in which UK missed an extra point and a 49-yard field goal was the kind of defeat that upwardly-ambitious programs can’t afford.
While falling 20-10 to Drinkwitz and Mizzou, UK got pushed around to a dispiriting degree.
With the ailing assistant coach John Schlarman unable to travel with the Kentucky team to Mizzou for the first time during his battle with an ultimately fatal cancer, it was not shocking that the Cats seemed listless.
Still, UK giving up its five-game win streak vs. Missouri without putting up more of a fight was a disappointment.
In the coming season, Kentucky needs to perform better vs. first-year head men.
ULM’s Bowden is 2-0 vs. the Cats from his long ago tenure (1993-98) as Auburn head man. The son of ex-Florida State coaching legend Bobby Bowden is inheriting a Louisiana Monroe team that not only went 0-10 in 2020, the Warhawks never led at any point in any game last year.
South Carolina’s Beamer, the son of the ex-Virginia Tech coaching icon Frank Beamer, is a true first-time head coach.
UK is 3-2 in its first meetings against the past five South Carolina head coaches. The Cats beat Bobo (last year), Muschamp (2016) and Lou Holtz (1999), while losing to Steve Spurrier (2005) and Brad Scott (1994).
When Heupel brings Tennessee to Kroger Field, Kentucky will be seeking to beat UT in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1976 and ‘77.
UK has lost its first game against the past six Tennessee head coaches it has faced. The Cats have not beaten a first-year UT head man since Fran Curci bested Johnny Majors in 1977.
Vandy’s Lea, the former Notre Dame defensive coordinator, also inherits a team that failed to win a game (0-9) last season.
UK is 3-2 in its first meetings against the past five Vanderbilt head coaches. The Cats beat Derek Mason (2014), Robbie Caldwell (2010) and Bobby Johnson (2002), while losing to James Franklin (2011) and Woody Wiedenhofer (2000).
Bottom line: For Kentucky in 2021, the path to a memorable season will almost certainly require Stoops to go 4-0 vs. the first-time head men the Cats will face.
