Five scenarios about Mark Stoops’ future as Kentucky football coach
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky’s final three games will determine Mark Stoops’ 2025 job status.
- A 3-0 finish would boost recruiting, retain core players and attract donors.
- A 0-3 close would force UK to weigh a costly Stoops buyout and reset.
In politics, they say “elections have consequences.” In sports, it is the outcome of games that leads to change.
A season-and-a-half stretch in 2024 and 2025 in which Kentucky football went 6-13 overall, 1-12 in SEC games, created uncertainty about Mark Stoops’ hold on his job. Now, however, UK’s back-to-back wins over SEC foes Auburn and Florida have yielded a stark change in the discussion around the UK program.
Kentucky’s 10-3 victory at Auburn two weeks ago followed by last Saturday night’s 38-7 “Gator roast” raised the Wildcats’ record to 4-5 overall, 2-5 in the SEC.
Through seven games, this had seemed a second-straight “lost season” for Kentucky football. Now, the two-straight SEC wins suddenly left Stoops answering questions Monday at his weekly news conference about UK’s odds of reaching the six wins necessary for bowl eligibility in 2025.
“I think (bowl eligibility is) important. I don’t deny the things that are right in front of you, that are true, that are real,” Stoops said at Kroger Field. “But let’s just win this week, you know. And that’s not coach speak. That’s truth. You keep on stacking good things on top of good things, and the results will be there.”
.JPG "LEX_251108_UKFBC_Fla_BS_13 (1).JPG")
Led by rapidly developing redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley, promising freshman wideouts DJ Miller and Cameron Miller, sophomore tight end Willie Rodriguez and a bevy of impressive young defenders, Kentucky appears to have a young nucleus around which a good team can be built.
UK’s late-season youth movement, which has coincided with the wins over Auburn and Florida, has enhanced the rationale for Kentucky bringing back its all-time winningest head man for a 14th season.
However, it is how the Wildcats fare in their final three games — on Saturday against FCS No. 6 Tennessee Tech (10-0); Nov. 22 at No. 13 Vanderbilt (8-2); and Nov. 29 at No. 19 Louisville (7-2) — that will ultimately dictate how much UK fan enthusiasm there is for keeping Stoops.
Let’s run through five scenarios about Stoops and his future at UK based on the consequences that will arise from how the Wildcats fare in their final three games:
1. Kentucky wins out — and Stoops stays at UK. A 3-0 finish would mean the Wildcats ruin Tennessee Tech’s undefeated season; likely knock Vanderbilt from College Football Playoff consideration; and give the “turnCat” Vince Marrow his comeuppance.
In that case, Stoops would enter the offseason riding a wave of positive momentum.
If the coach then wants to remain at Kentucky, that momentum could be key in retaining UK’s nucleus of young players; in wooing new recruits from both high school and the transfer portal; and in ginning up booster funding for the “legitimate NIL deals” that are going to be needed to augment the revenue UK itself is now allowed to share directly with its football players.
2.) Kentucky wins out — and Stoops leverages that into another job. It is possible that UK ending the season on what would be a five-game win streak would allow Stoops, and his high-powered agent, Jimmy Sexton, to create an exit route to another power-conference head-coaching position.
That would give both Stoops, 58, and Kentucky a fresh start. There is a credible argument that would be best for both parties.
Nevertheless, UK backers may lose some of their enthusiasm for a coaching transition if they see multiple members of Kentucky’s core of talented young players entering the transfer portal to go with Stoops to his new school.
3.) Kentucky goes 2-1 in its final three games. A 6-6 record would likely make it possible for UK to bring Stoops back. Conversely, breaking even on the season might not make it as easy for Stoops to leave for a different head coaching job.
4.) UK closes out 1-2 — the worst-case scenario. A 5-7 finish by Wildcats football puts University of Kentucky decision makers in a bind. A 5-7 overall record represents improvement over UK’s 2024 performance of 4-8.
But it would mean back-to-back losing seasons, which followed two disappointing 7-6 campaigns in 2022 and 2023.
Still, can you justify spending the $38 million required by contract to buy out Stoops from his pact based off a season that represented improvement over the previous year?
5.) An 0-3 conclusion at least brings clarity. Kentucky losing Saturday to FCS foe Tennessee Tech would immediately terminate the good feelings created by the wins over Auburn and Florida.
If that were followed by defeats to Vandy and U of L, it would seem to leave the University of Kentucky no choice other than to come up with the moolah needed to buy Stoops out.
All of this is why the outcome of the final three Kentucky Wildcats football games of the 2025 regular season will have massive consequences for Mark Stoops, for the University of Kentucky and for Wildcats football fans.
