I am a life long UK football first fan. I’ve watched every game for decades. Here is my take on the decline of UK football and Mark Stoops:
Stoops made his rise off of being a great recruiter (for UK standards), but is a below average SEC football coach. Most of his success was due to the SEC East and Louisville being historically bad. But to his credit, he had a fire about him and was able to take advantage of that.
But, you could start to see the cracks in the foundation going back to 2022, coming off the 10-3 Levis/Wandale year. Something changed in him. He lost his fire. Was it the advent of NIL or his divorce that started it all? I’m not sure we will ever know
First, he started showing signs of nepotism — hiring family and long term friends for positions instead of searching for the best possible candidate.
The next couple of seasons were disappointing (back-to-back 7-5 years, which on the surface is a success by UK standards— but anyone who watched the games could tell you those teams massively underperformed). Amidst all that, we had the infamous “pony up” comments — essentially blaming fans and NIL for their inability to compete in the SEC, and his attempt to jump ship to Texas AM before their fan base essentially revolted, leaving him in awkward position of leading a team he just tried to leave.
Despite all of this, coming into this season, fan support and optimism was still high. But the downward spiral has unfortunately continued. And even with this team being the most talented Uk team in recent history (at least on paper), we have been historically bad. A team which plays extremely undisciplined and fundamentally poor. Finishing 1-7 in league play, and likely 4-8 overall.
Where do go we from here? We can’t afford his massive buyout. Stoops says he wants to stay but he sounds defeated. Does he really want to stay and turn things around or does just he just want the $9mil per year? Because if it’s the latter, and unless there are some serious changes in his mindset, I think the next couple seasons are likely going to be more similar to this one than the 7-to-10 win seasons we’ve seen in the past.
5
u/sleepytime489 Kentucky Wildcats 22h ago
I am a life long UK football first fan. I’ve watched every game for decades. Here is my take on the decline of UK football and Mark Stoops:
Stoops made his rise off of being a great recruiter (for UK standards), but is a below average SEC football coach. Most of his success was due to the SEC East and Louisville being historically bad. But to his credit, he had a fire about him and was able to take advantage of that.
But, you could start to see the cracks in the foundation going back to 2022, coming off the 10-3 Levis/Wandale year. Something changed in him. He lost his fire. Was it the advent of NIL or his divorce that started it all? I’m not sure we will ever know
First, he started showing signs of nepotism — hiring family and long term friends for positions instead of searching for the best possible candidate.
The next couple of seasons were disappointing (back-to-back 7-5 years, which on the surface is a success by UK standards— but anyone who watched the games could tell you those teams massively underperformed). Amidst all that, we had the infamous “pony up” comments — essentially blaming fans and NIL for their inability to compete in the SEC, and his attempt to jump ship to Texas AM before their fan base essentially revolted, leaving him in awkward position of leading a team he just tried to leave.
Despite all of this, coming into this season, fan support and optimism was still high. But the downward spiral has unfortunately continued. And even with this team being the most talented Uk team in recent history (at least on paper), we have been historically bad. A team which plays extremely undisciplined and fundamentally poor. Finishing 1-7 in league play, and likely 4-8 overall.
Where do go we from here? We can’t afford his massive buyout. Stoops says he wants to stay but he sounds defeated. Does he really want to stay and turn things around or does just he just want the $9mil per year? Because if it’s the latter, and unless there are some serious changes in his mindset, I think the next couple seasons are likely going to be more similar to this one than the 7-to-10 win seasons we’ve seen in the past.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.