Paul Finebaum calls Vince Marrow leaving Kentucky for Louisville 'an absolute body blow' for Mark Stoops

Vince Marrow crossed rivalry lines on Monday with news coming that he’d be leaving Kentucky for Louisville. That’s just the latest piece of bad news, and arguably the worst one yet, over this offseason in Lexington.

Paul Finebaum reacted to Marrow leaving for Louisville live on his show this afternoon. He, like many in the bluegrass, realizes what a damning headline it is for Mark Stoops and the Wildcats considering what Marrow had represented over his dozen seasons on staff at UK.

“This is an absolute body blow to Mark Stoops’ Kentucky football program,” said Finebaum. “There you see (CBS Sports’ John) Talty saying, ‘it’s as big a dagger to UK football as possible’. And that was already a football program that was bleeding. The last two years have been abysmal for Mark Stoops.”

“This could not have come at a worse time and it is a significant story. Sometimes we talk about changes, assistants. This is the guy that literally ran the football operation there, in terms of personnel,” Finebaum said. “It’s a very big story.”

Marrow joined the staff at Kentucky in 2013 under Stoops, an old friend and teammate of his both growing up in Youngstown, Ohio. He had been their tight ends coach, recruiting coordinator, and professional liaison over that time before his promotion to associate head coach as well in 2019. As a whole, beyond Stoops, no one had been more important to this tenure, certainly of those off the field and arguably among those who were on it too, than Marrow.

Because of that, Marrow had been pursued by other programs for several years, whether as a head coach, assistant, or otherwise. That includes this very offseason where reports emerged that, after the team went 4-8 overall for their second-worst record under Stoops, Louisville under Jeff Brohm as well as North Carolina under Bill Belichick considered Marrow for jobs on their staffs in December as well as interest from Bowling Green. He took none of those in the end and had been back with Kentucky through the spring and into this summer.

However, Louisville came back around and got it done in hiring Marrow on a three-year deal to be the general manager of their football program. That is a blow of several layers from the Cardinals against the Wildcats as they take their top assistant twelve weeks before the season kicks off and does so reportedly without having to pay his buyout considering it’s for a front office role rather than an assistant one on staff for Brohm.

There’s no getting around the loss that this is for Kentucky Football with where he’s going only making it worse for UK. They’ll now have just under three months to recover from it before a season that’s now even more pivotal kicks under Stoops – and just under six months until the Wildcats will meet Marrow again in The Governor’s Cup.