For 2024 UK-U of L football rivalry meeting, the heat on both head coaches is high
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Preview: Louisville at Kentucky football
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday’s Kentucky-Louisville Governor’s Cup football rivalry game at Kroger Field.
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In advance of any major sports meeting between the Kentucky Wildcats and the Louisville Cardinals, it used to be a tradition in this space to ask which coach is under the most pressure?
Going into the 2024 football meeting between the Cats and the Cards, both coaches are under withering — but different — types of pressure.
In Jeff Brohm’s second shot coaching his college alma mater against its intrastate rival, the U of L coach is in a near must-win scenario for Saturday’s high noon meeting with UK.
When Kentucky visited Louisville a season ago for Brohm’s Governor’s Cup head coaching debut, U of L backers filled the L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium with an air of festive anticipation. Cards fans were expecting Brohm’s No. 9-ranked Cardinals to deliver a decisive victory that would end what was then a four-game Wildcats win streak over the Cardinals.
When, instead, Kentucky rallied from 10 points down in the second half to score a 38-31 upset over the Cards, a stunned sullenness fell over the stadium
With the 2024 Wildcats having limped through a 4-7 slog of a season, hometown hero Brohm risks losing that status if the Cardinals (7-4) lay another egg in the Governor’s Cup.
Yet if the game pressure Saturday is primarily on the Louisville coach, the “big picture” heat burns hot on UK head man Mark Stoops.
Whether UK extends its win streak over U of L to six games or takes an eighth defeat to end a lost 2024 season, the situation facing Stoops does not change. Kentucky’s 12th-year head man will wake up Sunday morning facing a pivotal moment in his UK coaching tenure.
The Kentucky program which Stoops lifted from its traditional standing as an SEC doormat into a respectable mid-tier Southeastern Conference football operation has slipped back down that mountain.
When Stoops came to UK in 2013, Kentucky had the worst football team in the SEC, having gone 0-8 in the league in 2012. This year, the Wildcats are 1-7 in the SEC, ahead only of rebuilding Mississippi State (0-7) in the league standings.
From 2016 through 2021, Stoops’ Kentucky program went 47-29 overall and 25-25 in Southeastern Conference games.
Starting in 2022, UK has gone 18-19, 7-17 in the SEC.
Contrary to what one reads in the message board fever swamps, Stoops — based on the totality of his work at Kentucky — does not deserve to be fired. That would be true even if it would not presently cost UK more than $50 million in buyouts to remove Stoops and his assistant coaches.
But UK backers who are concerned about the direction of the Kentucky football program and whether Stoops can preside over a second turnaround in the Wildcats’ fortunes have valid reasons for their worries.
At Kroger Field on Monday at his weekly news conference, Stoops addressed multiple issues that will define the coming UK offseason.
Near the end of a season in which opposing edge pass rushers have often run fast breaks into the Kentucky backfield, Stoops acknowledged that UK badly needs immediate help from the transfer portal at offensive tackle.
“We need to go get some help at tackle for sure,” Stoops said.
Structurally, Stoops said Kentucky enters this crucial stretch “in better position than I have ever been” in terms of NIL funding. “We’ve worked hard behind the scenes to put ourselves in a position to try to catch up,” he said.
In the recent era of “free” transferring, Kentucky has lost only one full-time starter to the portal. Whether that high level of retention of key players will continue with UK coming off such a disappointing season is an open question.
“Quite honestly, we need some attrition (for roster management purposes),” Stoops said, “but we obviously want to keep our best players here and build that foundation and take care of those players and then go out and supplement and bring in some as well.”
The installation of true freshman Cutter Boley as Kentucky’s starting quarterback for the Governor’s Cup battle with Louisville is part of one of the few positives from the 2024 UK season. The Wildcats look to have promising young talent in the offensive skill positions and at all three levels defensively.
Whether Stoops and Co. can keep that young nucleus in Lexington will be a huge factor in determining the immediate future of Kentucky football.
“Whatever (happens with the portal), nobody needs to panic,” Stoops said. “We have an opportunity to get this roster fixed, and work hard, and that’s my plan — to work hard, to get the pieces in place.”
Even with the glaring need at offensive tackle, the biggest thing Stoops needs to address is not player personnel per se.
Those six Kentucky teams that won 47 football games from 2016 through 2021 tended to play tough-minded, disciplined football.
Starting in 2022, something changed for UK. Over the past three seasons, Kentucky’s performances have too often yielded undisciplined, even sloppy football.
Coming up with and implementing a plan to fix that is the most important thing Mark Stoops needs to work on over what will be a critical offseason for Kentucky football.
This story was originally published November 28, 2024 at 6:30 AM.
