Can Mark Stoops again turn the Kentucky football program around?

In what increasingly feels like a lost Kentucky football season, frustrated elements of the UK fan base have begun to agitate for a coaching change.

For the University of Kentucky administration to act on that sentiment after this season, UK would not only have to pay Mark Stoops a contract buyout north of $40 million. Kentucky would also have to pay buyouts in excess of $10.7 million to the assistant coaches on Stoops’ staff.

So even if — as seems likely — UK (3-6, 1-6 SEC) goes on to finish its 2024 campaign with records of 4-8 overall and 1-7 in the SEC, those humongous buyout figures are a primary reason why I don’t think Kentucky will seriously contemplate changing its head coach.

Unless Stoops decides to “pull a Calipari” and leave of his own volition, I anticipate his being the Kentucky head man for a 13th season in 2025.

That is why, as UK enjoys a bye week before closing its season with games against FCS foe Murray State (1-8), at No. 5 Texas (7-1) and vs. No. 25 Louisville (6-3), the pertinent question for those with an interest in Kentucky football is this:

Can the 57-year-old Stoops — the winningest coach in Wildcats football history (officially 66-71 due to the NCAA vacating UK’s 2021 wins but 76-71 in on-the-field results) — again turn Kentucky’s football fortunes in a positive direction?

In search of meaningful data, I examined what has happened to coaches who have succeeded in challenging football jobs such as UK but who also have endured bad seasons — as Stoops is doing now — after long stretches of success.

Exactly 674 miles northwest of Kroger Field, is an example that Wildcats backers will hope Stoops can duplicate.

After Matt Campbell went 3-9 in his first season as Iowa State head man in 2016, he ripped off five straight winning seasons, including a 9-3 campaign in 2020. However, Iowa State sagged to 4-8 in 2022. But since then the Cyclones have come back to go 7-6 last year and this season are 7-1 and ranked No. 17 in the AP Top 25.

At North Carolina State, Dave Doeren started his coaching tenure with a 3-9 mark in 2013. The Wolfpack proceeded to produce five consecutive winning seasons before slumping to 4-8 in 2019. However, since that competitive dip, N.C. State has bounced back with four more winning years (2020 through 2023) and sits at 5-4 in 2024.

At Wake Forest, Dave Clawson went 3-9 in back-to-back campaigns to start his Demon Deacons coaching career in 2014 and 2015. Wake then produced winning seasons in six of the next seven years before stumbling to 4-8 last season. Whether Clawson can bounce back in the manner that Campbell and Doeren have is still to be determined. This season, Wake Forest is 4-4 (2-2) with games remaining with California, at North Carolina, at No. 4 Miami and vs. Duke.

To date, the 2024 Kentucky football season has been one of the more frustrating ever produced by a program that has, across the decades, generated far more than its share of frustration.

As Kentucky showed again in putting up a stern fight in a 28-18 road loss to No. 7 Tennessee on Saturday night, the Wildcats are capable of going toe-to-toe with top-10 foes. The Cats came agonizingly close to knocking off then-No. 1 Georgia before falling 13-12 on Sept. 14. UK’s only SEC win so far this season was a 20-17 road upset of then-No. 7 Mississippi on Sept. 28.

Yet the UK team that has battled elite opposition with such vigor has turned in varying degrees of clunkers in all other SEC games: Kentucky lost by 25 to South Carolina, seven to Vanderbilt, 28 at Florida and 10 to Auburn.

To get UK football back on the ascension, Stoops has to 1.) start to get high-level performances from his team in games other than those against top-10 foes; 2.) eliminate the undisciplined football that has now plagued three straight Kentucky seasons; 3.) get his team — 2-11 in its last 13 SEC home games — to better defend its home turf.

What Campbell at Iowa State and Doeren at N.C. State have done after they endured losing seasons shows coaching momentum can be regained.

Alas, neither of them is working in the Southeastern Conference.

One thing that makes Kentucky’s prospects of an immediate return to winning in 2025 problematic is the SEC has already announced the league schedule for the coming season will be the same as the current one — except with home and road games reversed.

That means a brutal conference home slate of Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas for UK in 2025 with road games against four teams — Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina and Vanderbilt — that beat the Cats this season in Lexington.

Bottom line: For Stoops to again flip the fortunes of Kentucky football is not impossible — but it’s not going to be easy.

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