Mark Stoops was once the longest-tenured coach in the SEC, but he was fired Sunday night after a disastrous 41-0 loss to Louisville. This loss was the biggest loss in the history of the Governors Cup and led to conversations to unfold after losing to a Louisville team missing many star players and four running backs. This shutout marked the end of the Mark Stoops era and his 13 years at Kentucky football. I will forever respect Mark, but his time has definitely come, and it is a new era of CFB now.
Stoops’ career at Kentucky helped them reach new heights and many notable milestones as well. This included two ten-win seasons and eight straight bowl game appearances from 2016-2023. Mark Stoops holds the program record for wins and saved a program that was left for dead after the Joker era. However, following a 10-3 season in 2021, everything started to crash down, and UK football became a total disaster. The Wildcats fell to a 20-23 record over their next 43 games. The 2024 and 2025 campaigns saw back-to-back seasons where the Wildcats fell short of bowl eligibility even after a promising upset against a stacked Ole Miss team.
The firing started to look like more of a reality after the Louisville game. Despite the egregious buyout, the university realized that a change needed to be made. The Wildcats gave up over 100 rushing yards to walk on first-year student Braxton Jennings. The offense also failed to score any points for the first time since 2022, giving fans flashbacks to the Joker days. Louisville dominated this game from start to finish and in every way possible and there were no bright spots from Kentucky.
The start of the fall under stoops included:
- 10 consecutive SEC losses after an incredible upset over a stacked Ole Miss team
- Undisciplined teams and having some of the most penalized teams in the country
- Not winning an SEC home game in three years
- Terrible clock management and just game IQ in general
- Losing games in the worst ways, over and over again, basically giving the team the game
- Terrible play calling and decision-making
- Too conservative and never taking any risks
The Mark Stoops era has finally ended, and it ended on a negative note, but Mark Stoops changed the program forever. He has done a lot of good for the university and the football program, but the lack of discipline, play calling, and decisions cost him his job. Mark Stoops leaves with an amazing legacy at UK and has raised expectations of the program from the ground up, but in the end, sustained mediocrity and not being able to finish games left the school finally having to make the tough call to let Mark Stoops go. These factors ultimately closed the book on the Mark Stoops era at Kentucky.
