Kentucky Football Fans are in an Exhausting Cycle with Mark Stoops

Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s good for your hair, or so I’ve been told, but it’s an unhealthy dynamic between Mark Stoops and Kentucky football fans, specifically its most passionate fans online.

Monday was another Groundhog Day for this Kentucky football reporter. The Kentucky head coach spent about 90 minutes speaking publicly, first with the media, then with fans on his call-in show.

The script follows a pattern. Stoops answers questions directly about the game. Those matters are important — like who is starting at quarterback and who is injured — but they are also somewhat trivial in a 4-6 season. That’s when the conversation turns to big-picture topics and the Big Blue Nation collectively rolls its eyes at the head coach.

Stoops Can’t Resist Quips on the Schedule, NIL

This will be Kentucky’s first trip to Texas since Bear Bryant opened the 1951 season in Austin with a 7-6 loss. I asked Stoops about the challenges of playing an unfamiliar foe in a division-less SEC, and he said this.

“It’s very random and some people got the short end of the stick this year on certain draws. Some people didn’t and that’s everybody. We’ll play the same next year,” he said.

That probably didn’t draw the same attention as what he shared when Tom Leach noted that Texas is ranked No. 3, the fourth CBP contender on Kentucky’s schedule.

“Is that all? Some teams don’t play one. We get four,” Stoops said.

As he said that, I could see the comments flowing on KSBoard. Kentucky football fans know what the schedule is. They don’t want to hear their coach complaining about it. The same applies to NIL and the transfer portal. The Cats struck out this year. He acknowledged that he needs to be better and hit on more than they miss.

“Building your culture, developing your culture, who you are, and defining that, we have to do that,” he said during the press conference. “We talked about that, expediating that process and everything else, but let’s be honest, you get the best players you can. Money helps.” 

That was tame compared to the money talk he shared on the call-in show. He prefaced it by saying that he was not complaining about it, then proceeded to do just that. It’s an “I love you, but.”

“It’s just part of college football,” he said Monday night. “Now, we’ve got to continue to build it with a foundation of high school recruiting and recruiting and developing those guys, but you’ve got to supplement it with the transfer portal. That’s something that — that’s the area where I have to and we have to do a better job. I don’t want to get into it, I don’t want to whine about it, don’t want to cry, but I’ve been busting my tail trying to raise money, you know?

“Again, I don’t want to cry. It’s just — that’s what it takes, period. The end. Like, you’ve got to have it.”

How Does This Cycle End?

Kentucky football fans fell in love with the fiery coach from Youngstown because he brought that fight to opponents. Now that fight is being directed toward the state of college football, one he cannot change. That’s the part that really gets to BBN. He has to find creative ways to be successful in the new model of college football.

“You either exist, you exit — you leave and say goodbye — or you find a way to explore your options to get better…,” Stoops told Finebaum at SEC Media Days. “… But we want more. I’m not interested in just existing at Kentucky.”

Exiting is one way to end this cycle. Self-control is another way to break it.

Since the pony up comments from last fall, Kentucky fans clearly don’t want to hear any more about the need to financially invest in the program. About 95% of what Stoops says publicly is normal coaching rhetoric. The other 5% of the time, he makes a quip that enrages a portion of the fanbase.

How does he avoid that 5%? By not talking. That’s what he did last offseason. You could count on one hand how many times he spoke publicly outside of spring practice. If Stoops chooses not to exit this offseason, we’re heading toward another quiet offseason from the Kentucky head coach that will break this exhausting cycle, but only temporarily.