Mark Stoops Ranked No. 15 College Football Coach in America

by:Nick Roush•03/10/22•

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Mark Stoops is one of the best college football coaches in America. Folks are finally catching on and recognizing what the Youngstown native has accomplished as Kentucky’s head football coach.

Each offseason a variety of outlets submit rankings for the top coaches in the sport. Typically it happens in April or May, but The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman wanted to get ahead of the pack. This week he released his Top 25 college football coach rankings. A year after he was on the outside looking in, Stoops ranked as the No. 15 college football coach in America.

A terrific developer of talent, he’s made some really smart hires, especially bringing in offensive coordinator Liam Coen from the Los Angeles Rams, if only for a season. It helped produce a 10-3 season and No. 15 ranking in the Coaches Poll. Stoops has won double-digit games in two of the past four seasons and is 33-17 the past four years. He’s thriving at a place that had won more than eight games only four times in the previous 100-plus years.
The Athletic

Stoops is one of five SEC coaches in the Top 25, trailing only Kirby Smart (3) in the SEC East. Nick Saban is, of course, the top dog, with Jimbo Fisher at No. 7 and Lane Kiffin at No. 17. Kentucky will travel to Ole Miss in October and host Georgia in the penultimate game of the 2022 regular season.

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Athletics director Mitch Barnhart rewarded Stoops after his second 10-win season with a contract extension, a larger salary pool for his assistant coaches and plans for a $5 million renovation of Nutter Field House.

Kinnard Solid Day Two Draft Stock

Elsewhere around The Athletic universe, Dane Brugler released an updated two-round mock draft following the NFL Combine. Factoring in workouts and buzz from scouts, the thorough draft analyst has only one Wildcat coming off the board in the first two rounds, slotting in Darian Kinnard at No. 40 overall to the Denver Broncos. The moral of the story: Kinnard did not dramatically help or hurt his draft stock after a few days in Indianapolis.