Mark Stoops not surprised by Vanderbilt's turnaround under Clark Lea

Kentucky head coach knows a thing or two about turning around a program, taking Kentucky from the bottom of the SEC East to a Top 10 ranking earlier this season which is constantly picked as a possible dark horse to win the division. That makes him uniquely qualified to speak on what Vanderbilt and Clark Lea did to him over the weekend.

As the coach who has humiliated many others simply by picking up a win, Mark Stoops now knows what its like to be on the other side after being the team which Vanderbilt snapped its conference losing streak against. However, he is not surprised given what he has seen from Clark Lea so far.

CLICK HERE to subscribe for FREE to the On3 YouTube channel

“I’m worried about our school and our program,” said Stoops. “But yeah, it doesn’t surprise me. Again, I’ve said it, I’ve credited them. I can see the way he’s working, the way they’re building the program.

“And I can tell because I’ve been there. I don’t know if anybody else in the league has been where Vandy was when he took over and where Kentucky was. I’ve been there, I’ve been through it. And I know the sacrifice that goes into getting to where they – even to where they’re at right now. Anybody who thinks that’s easy, go try it.”

Mark Stoops on expectations

Expectations were high for coach Mark Stoops and Kentucky football heading into the 2022 season. Coming off of only their fourth 10-win season in program history in 2021, the Wildcats entered ranked at No. 20 in the preseason AP poll, their first preseason ranking since 1978.

Although it began the season 4-0 and rose as high as No. 7 in the polls, Kentucky has since gone 2-4 and fallen out completely. It hit a new low this past week when lost to Vanderbilt 24-21 at home, allowing the Commodores to snap a 26-game conference losing streak.

In his Monday press conference, Stoops was asked how the high preseason expectations made this year different than his previous nine seasons when the Wildcats were considered an “underdog,” leading to an interesting response.

“I think that’s fair because it’s human nature and we fight against it as strong as we can,” he said. “I had a conversations with one of our leaders and great players yesterday about that. We talked about that exact thing. You know what we can be, but you know we have some youth and things to fill. I’m just not one to — I don’t feel comfortable talking about excuses. You fire (questions) at me like, ‘Do we have a good team?’ What am I gonna say? No? I believe in our players. I believe in our team. I still believe in them. Nobody’s given up. We do have a very good team.”