LEXINGTON, Ky. — Even after Kentucky’s lackluster 7-6 football season in 2022, Mark Stoops continues to receive ample respect in the national rankings of the best college football coaches.
According to 24/7 Sports, Stoops will enter 2023 considered the 15th-best coach in all of the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Sporting News and on3.com both list Stoops at No. 16 in the country. CBS Sports and Pro Football Focus each have Stoops standing at No. 18.
The esteem Stoops has received from national outlets is in contrast to a high-visibility SEC football podcaster who recently awarded the Kentucky head coach a career grade of “C” for his work as UK head man since 2013.
Which is it?
My stipulation: The performance of a coach is best evaluated versus the historical standards of the team the head man leads. To fully grasp how the Stoops era compares with the historical track record of the UK football program, let’s dig into some numbers:
The plus side
Of the nine UK football coaches who immediately preceded Stoops, exactly none — that’s zip, zilch, zero — left Kentucky with a winning record.
At 66-59 since 2013, Stoops is seeking to become the first head football coach to compile a winning overall mark for UK since Blanton Collier went 41-36-3 from 1954 through 1961.
— Stoops inherited the Kentucky program with the Wildcats coming off a 2-10, 0-8 SEC season, in Joker Phillips’ final year as UK coach in 2012.
In his first 38 games as top Cat, Stoops lost 26 times. Of his initial 25 SEC games as Kentucky coach, Stoops lost 21.
Since the 12-26 start to his Kentucky career, Stoops has subsequently gone 54-33. After starting 4-21 in SEC contests, Stoops has gone 28-29 since.
— A charter member of the Southeastern Conference, UK has been playing football in the SEC since 1933. In all that time, the Wildcats have gone winless in league games more times (15) than they have produced a winning conference record (nine times).
Of those nine winning league years, Stoops is responsible for two of them — 5-3 in both 2018 and 2021.
— In its entire football history, Kentucky has won 10 or more games in a season four times.
Stoops has produced exactly half of those UK double-digit-win seasons — 10-3 records in both 2018 and 2021.
— From 1958 through 2010, the Kentucky football program produced a combined total of four Associated Press first-team All-Americans.
Since 2018, Stoops’ program has had five players earn AP first-team All-America honors.
— In the first 13 NFL Drafts of the 21st century, Kentucky had 22 players selected.
Over the past five NFL Drafts (since 2019) alone, Stoops and UK have seen 20 players taken.
The debit side
Even with the obvious ascension in Kentucky’s football fortunes during the Stoops era, there have been areas that have proven resiliently frustrating:
— At 2-8 vs. Tennessee, Stoops has as many wins against the Volunteers as the six UK head men who immediately proceeded him had combined.
But Stoops should have done better against the Rocky Toppers. Kentucky lost to UT when the Wildcats clearly had the better team in 2018 and 2021 and arguably had the better team in 2019.
— Under Stoops, Kentucky is 0-11 in road games vs. SEC West foes (there were two such games played in 2020). Five of those losses have come in Starkville against UK’s permanent (for one more season) cross-division rival, Mississippi State.
Over the past four contests at MSU, UK hasn’t even been competitive, losing by an average margin of 23.3 points.
— Since 2016, Kentucky’s 28 wins in SEC games ranks the Wildcats program seventh out of the league’s 14 teams.
That represents a huge step upward for Kentucky football. Stoops inherited the UK program when the Cats had the worst team in the SEC. He has elevated Kentucky into the respectable middle of the league. In 2018 and 2021, the Wildcats even reached the top of the SEC’s middle.
What UK has not been able to do is puncture the league’s top tier. Under Stoops, Kentucky is a combined 0-13 against Alabama and Georgia.
In 2023, Stoops, Liam Coen, Devin Leary and Co. will get a chance at both of the SEC kingpins, playing Georgia in Athens and Alabama in Lexington.
Stoops will enter the coming season in an interesting spot. Kentucky has had enough recent success that a previously downtrodden Wildcats fan base now dares to dream big.
Problem is, Kentucky can do an awful lot right as a football program with no certainty that will ever be enough to get to the level of Georgia or Alabama.
The fact that some people have allowed themselves to become frustrated because Kentucky football has not reached the same heights of two programs that have combined to win eight national championships since 2009 is a clear sign of just how much expectations for the Cats have risen under Stoops.
That alone should earn Stoops a coaching grade far higher than a “C.”
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