The crucial area in which Mark Stoops has lost his mojo
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky is 3-6 in one-possession games since the start of the 2023 season.
- From 2016–2021, UK posted a 20-9 record in close games during its bowl streak.
- Discipline issues and clock mismanagement have undermined UK in recent losses.
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To put a Dickensian spin on it, Mark Stoops says Kentucky football’s 30-23 loss to Mississippi on Saturday yielded a tale of two realities.
On the one hand, “there was a lot of good things in that (game) we have to build on,” the Kentucky football coach said Monday at his weekly news conference at Kroger Field.
However, Stoops also acknowledged there were “a lot of mistakes we got to get corrected. We played winning football with much in that game, so we got to learn to capitalize, finish it off and play better in critical moments.”
Last week’s seven-point loss to Lane Kiffin’s then-No. 20 Rebels continued what has become an unhappy tendency for recent UK football teams. Since the start of the 2023 season, Kentucky is now 3-6 in games decided by eight points or fewer.
In fact, if you are looking for the biggest difference between the 10-win teams during the Stoops coaching era and the UK squads of the more disappointing recent seasons, look to how the Cats have fared in close games.
Consider:
• From 2015 through 2021, Kentucky had a winning record in one-possession games in six of seven years — and went 2-2 in such contests in the one exception, the 2019 season.
• Over the first six seasons (2016 through 2021) of what would become an eight-year bowl streak, UK went 20-9 in close games.
• During Kentucky’s 10-win seasons of 2018 and 2021, the Wildcats went a combined 8-2 — 3-1 in 2018; 5-1 in 2021 — in contests whose final margins were within eight points.
• Conversely, since the start of 2023, the Wildcats are now 1-5 in Southeastern Conference games decided by eight points or fewer.
• Starting in 2022, UK has not had a winning mark in close games in any season and has a combined 5-8 record in one-possession games over that time.
• That 5-8 mark in the close ones is one reason why UK’s overall mark has slipped from 47-29, 25-25 in the SEC, from 2016 through 2021 to 19-21, 11-18 in SEC contests, since 2022.
At Kentucky, a coach is competing in a brutal football conference against multiple rival programs that boast inherent advantages UK does not enjoy.
Given that reality, one does not need the football IQ of Andy Reid to understand that to succeed as Wildcats head man, a coach has to win (more than) his share of the close ones.
This is an enduring reality of Kentucky football.
During UK’s five-year bowl streak from 2006 through 2010, the Wildcats won 14 games in which they were either behind or tied with opponents in the fourth quarter.
Kentucky’s back-to-back Hall of Fame Bowl teams in 1983 and 1984 were a combined 5-1-1 in close games.
UK’s 1976 SEC co-championship team and the 1977 squad that finished 10-1 went a combined 6-1 in games decided by eight points or fewer.
On a micro level, there is not one specific area that explains why Stoops and troops have stopped consistently winning the one-possession contests. However, from the macro view, the issue that UK has too often been plagued by since 2022 is undisciplined football.
In the loss to Ole Miss on Saturday, Kentucky had to burn all three of its first-half timeouts on offense to avert delay of game penalties.
Those burnt timeouts came back to bite UK at the end of the second quarter, when the Wildcats had no means to stop the clock as they drove the football near field goal range on their final drive of the first half.
An extra three points from half one could have made a huge strategic difference for Kentucky in the second half of a game that was tied at 20 late into the third quarter.
Last season’s pivotal 20-13 loss to Vanderbilt came when UK committed a whopping 12 penalties for 105 yards, handicapping itself in a low-possession game in which the most efficient offense was destined to triumph.
Two years ago, Kentucky self-sabotaged in what became a brutal 17-14 road loss to a South Carolina team that finished 5-7. The Wildcats concluded that game minus-three in turnover margin and having committed seven penalties, almost every one in a crucial moment.
Meanwhile, UK finished that 2023 season by turning a 21-10 fourth quarter lead over Clemson in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl into a 38-35 loss by committing four turnovers in that final period
What made Kentucky’s slap dash first-half management of the play clock against Ole Miss — and, in fairness, UK got its problems fixed at halftime and had no such issues in half two — so disappointing is that the overarching goal for the Wildcats in 2025 should be to return to playing a cleaner brand of football.
When it comes to winning the close ones, the trend has not recently been Kentucky’s friend.
For Mark Stoops to again get the arc of his program moving upward, that will have to change.
This story was originally published September 8, 2025 at 4:59 PM.
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