Vince Marrow insists Kentucky's issues are fixable: "It was one year"

After a Sunday night of speculation, Vince Marrow is not headed to Louisville. Furthermore, he believes all of the issues that plagued Kentucky during the 4-8 season can be fixed.

During an appearance on Kentucky Sports Radio this morning, Marrow insisted that the program can get back on track after what he says was just one bad season. He chalked the bulk of the issues up to poor evaluations of Kentucky’s transfer portal additions, telling listeners that once the staff gets the right guys in place, the program will return to the type of success we’re used to seeing in the Mark Stoops era.

“I think Mark [Stoops] would say it first, he said he let some things slip,” Marrow said, referring to Stoops’ comments after the 41-14 loss to Louisville. “I thought he was saying a little too much of that because I think you’ve got to have just the right players in here too. And maybe it did slip. I mean, there’s some things that probably transpired that people see from outside that it’s like, hey, that’s something very small but then when you start losing, it becomes a bigger issue because now you don’t have no culture. Now you’ll have the right guys. Now you’ve got bad coaches.

“I just think, man, it was one year. One thing I do know about Mark Stoops: he’s a Youngstown guy. This will not stay the same way it is. I can promise you that.”

Marrow said Stoops and his staff still have the support of the administration and top-level boosters to get things fixed. Now, it’s about using those resources to keep the players that want on the current roster here and add the “right” ones from the portal and high school ranks.

“We will get this fixed, and I’m not concerned at all. That taste in our mouth, it’s gonna last for a couple of months until we go back up there and play. I really feel good where we’re going to go, and we’re going to have the right players in here, and we’re going to get this damn thing going.”

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Players will certainly come and go. What about the staff? Marrow said there could be “a change here or there,” but the “core” group of coaches will remain. For what it’s worth, Brad White had been mentioned as a candidate for the Florida State defensive coordinator opening, but that job now reportedly belongs to Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White.

“Man, it’s one year. And I know there’s been a lot of talk about what’s going this way, going that way, I can promise you, Mark Stoops is very motivated, and the staff. There ares a lot of rumors going around about the staff. I’m telling you right now, everybody was in the office yesterday working late. Is Mark probably going — will there be a change here and there? That’s for Mark Stoops, he’ll have to answer that. There could be but I know the main core of this is still together.”

During his postgame conversation with Tom Leach on Saturday, Stoops said it’s easier to turn things around now than when he first took the job at Kentucky in 2013. Both he and Marrow believe their initial rebuild should buy them some goodwill to get things back on track this time around.

“There are ways to get it fixed,” Stoops said on Saturday. “It’s not like I have no idea. You know what I’ve done. I’ve done things at this school that nobody else has. I mean, it’s not like I totally forgot, but I have to do better.”

“Did we want to have this season?” Marrow said this morning. “No, there’s nobody in that building excited from Mitch [Barnhart] on down, but the support is there, and we’re gonna get that back on the right track. But, I mean, we have one bad season out of the last eight, and, nobody, nobody, is happy about that. And so I think we get back on the right track of regrouping.”

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