Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops was hired to take over the program in 2012, and has endured for over a decade. In fact, he is now the most tenured coach in the SEC.
The Wildcats job was Stoops first as a head coach, and it has largely been a successful run. He has an overall record of 73 – 65 in Lexington, and has led Kentucky to eight straight bowl game appearances. That’s twice as many as any other coach in Wildcats history.
CBS thinks Stoops is doing a pretty good job as well. In their ranking of the Power Four coaches, they placed him as the 20th best head coach. This is what they had to say about him:
Considering the university didn’t want to pay John Calipari’s buyout, and then Calipari left to take the Arkansas job, can we now say definitively that Kentucky is a football school? The fact I say that only half-jokingly is a testament to the job Stoops has done in Lexington. Stoops is 73-65 with two 10-win seasons in 11 years with the Wildcats, and he’s 71-55 after a 2-10 first season. Things have evened out in the last two seasons, but Stoops still has respect from our panel.
Kentucky is still obviously a basketball school, but the football team has definitely become a hotter ticket over Stoops’ tenure. After years as an afterthought, the Wildcats have ceased being an automatic win for other teams, and fans go into each season with some measure of excitement. That alone is worthy of the top 20 ranking.