Mark Stoops and Kentucky football are showing signs of life
When longtime Kentucky football recruiting ace Vince Marrow defected to Louisville last month, it was widely interpreted as a devastating blow to the beleaguered Mark Stoops coaching regime at UK.
Yet, in the weeks since the “Big Dawg” became a “turnCat,” something unanticipated has happened — Stoops and UK football are showing signs of life.
The recruiting commitment Sunday night from prized Ohio high school quarterback Matt Ponatoski to Kentucky put an exclamation point on what has been a good month for UK’s post-Marrow football recruiting efforts.
Ponatoski, a two-sport star from Cincinnati’s Archbishop Moeller High School, is Ohio’s reigning Gatorade Player of the Year in both football and baseball. Out of all other male athletes ever to compete in the United States, only two have earned state Gatorade Player of the Year honors in two different sports in the same school year.
For Ponatoski, being on a list whose only other members are Pro Football Hall of Famer Randy Moss (basketball and football in 1993-94 in West Virginia) and Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Mauer (baseball and football in 2000-01 in Minnesota) must be heady.
As a quarterback, Ponatoski is accomplished enough that Alabama and Oregon were among his recruiting finalists. As a shortstop, Ponatoski is talented enough that he is thought to be a potential early-round selection in the 2026 Major League Baseball draft.
At UK, Ponatoski’s plan is to play both football and baseball.
Ponatoski became the 15th commit in Kentucky’s 2026 football recruiting class — all of whom have pledged to the Wildcats since June 3.
What appeared from the outside to be an emerging Cat-astrophe when UK entered June with only one class of 2026 commitment (Paducah Tilghman offensive tackle Jarvis Strickland, who would subsequently de-commit and follow Marrow to Louisville) has been turned into something that is at least respectable.
For Stoops, coming off three straight disappointing seasons that bottomed out with last year’s 4-8 slog, that’s a needed sign of remaining program viability.
The commitment from Ponatoski continued what has been a good offseason for Kentucky offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Bush Hamdan.
Last fall, the first UK offense Hamdan directed put up averages of 14.1 points and 269.9 yards a game in Kentucky’s nine contests vs. power conference foes.
To put that futility in perspective, in 2020, when Stoops chose to move on from his good friend Eddie Gran as Kentucky’s primary play caller, the Wildcats averaged 21.7 points and 311.8 yards a game vs. power conference foes.
Two seasons later, when Stoops decided Rich Scangarello’s tenure as Cats offensive coordinator would be one and done, UK averaged 18.4 points and 310.8 yards per contest against major conference opposition.
Kentucky’s glaring need for offensive continuity after having had a different offensive coordinator in five straight seasons bought Hamdan a second year.
The OC has made that second chance count by helping Kentucky secure commitments from not one but two promising quarterbacks — Ponatoski (class of 2026) and dual-threat QB DJ Hunter (class of 2027).
Ponatoski told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Hamdan was stoked when the Moeller QB committed. “He was super excited,” Ponatoski said. “... It was special for me because (Hamdan) told me it was one of the better days of his football career so far.”
In recruiting, of course, verbal commitments are often tenuous. The Wildcats will probably have to sweat out the 2026 MLB draft to get Ponatoski to campus. Meanwhile, Hunter just added a scholarship offer from Lane Kiffin and Mississippi. So there’s a long way to go before we’ll know if either QB ever actually rocks Kentucky blue.
Nevertheless, with the two QB commitments factored in with current UK redshirt freshman signal caller Cutter Boley and true frosh Stone Saunders and Brennen Ward, the Wildcats’ future at quarterback looks brighter at this moment than it has in eons.
Not even the wildest Big Blue optimist would have predicted this being the Wildcats’ reality the morning after UK’s listless offensive showing in its 41-14 loss to Louisville in last year’s regular season finale.
Whether Stoops and Kentucky football — with veteran transfer QB Zach Calzada expected to start under center this fall — can produce positive momentum on the field in 2025 is the $37 million question.
That figure, give or take, is what it would cost UK to buy Stoops out of the remaining seasons on his contract after the 2025 campaign.
For a Kentucky athletics operation that is having to borrow money from the university proper as it enters the era of sharing revenue with its athletes, that ample buyout in Stoops’ contract will probably form a prohibitive barrier to changing coaches.
Barring an unmitigated competitive disaster in 2025, Stoops is probably going to continue to be UK football’s top Cat in 2026 if he wants to be.
Given that probability, the fact that Stoops and his remaining Kentucky coaching staff have rallied after the Big Dawg turned heel and have created some positive recruiting momentum is not a small thing.
