With Mark Stoops staying at Kentucky, he has some things he needs to get fixed

Mark Stoops’ ill-fated coaching dalliance with Texas A&M was fascinating.

Once word emerged in the Texas A&M-focused media Saturday night that Stoops was the apparent choice to replace Jimbo Fisher, there was a social media revolt among professed Aggies fans.

The idea that the Kentucky coach was not worthy of the Texas A&M job is kind of a hoot.

Since UK’s eight-year streak of bowl eligibility began in 2016, Kentucky has won 61 football games. In the same time frame, Texas A&M has won 61 football games.

Since 2018, the victory tally is Kentucky 47, Texas A&M 46.

Since 2021, UK has 24 wins and A&M has 20.

Stoops is working in a program that lacks a rich football tradition and in a small state (population of roughly 4.509 million) that does not have a bountiful in-state recruiting base.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M is rolling in booster money for its NIL platforms and is situated in a large state (population of some 29.53 million) that turns out reams of high-level football prospects every year.

So, sure, why would Texas A&M want a coach who has shown he can match or exceed the victory output of the Aggies program over an extended time frame while working with far fewer natural advantages?

Moving forward, Stoops’ first task is to not let the public nature of his Texas A&M linkage negatively impact UK’s ability to recruit new players or to retain the good players it already has.

Longer term, Stoops has at least five crucial areas in which fixes are needed if Kentucky football (7-5, 3-5 SEC in 2023) is to return to an ascending competitive arc in 2024:

1. Defending Kroger Field. The single biggest reason UK has turned in disappointing regular seasons of 7-5 in both 2022 and 2023 is it went 1-3 in SEC home games in both seasons.

In 2024, UK’s league foes at home will be Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.

The flat goal for Stoops and troops should be to win at least three of those games.

2. Fixing the third-down defense. Kentucky gave up an average of 238.5 yards a game through the air in 2023. That is easily the worst figure compiled by UK since Brad White became defensive coordinator in 2019.

Trouble defending against the pass is part of the reason why Kentucky allowed opponents to convert on third down a whopping 47.4% of the time. That was a massive drop-off from the prior season, when UK allowed only a 33.3% third-down conversion rate.

Even in Saturday’s epic 38-31 Kentucky upset of then-No. 10 Louisville, the Wildcats allowed the Cardinals to convert nine of 17 third-down attempts.

3. Offensive tempo. Out of 130 FBS football teams, UK ran the fewest offensive plays from scrimmage (663) of any. Even wishbone-oriented Navy (683) and Army (667) and offensively challenged Iowa (717) got off more plays than Kentucky.

Now, part of that was Barion Brown giving the Wildcats two kickoff return TDs and the Cats scoring four defensive touchdowns — which combined to cost the UK offense six drives (for entirely good reasons).

Going forward, Kentucky would benefit from playing faster, if only to have more touches to spread around its offensive roster.

4. Establishing a multi-year quarterback. Unless something changes via an eligibility waiver from the NCAA, Devin Leary will be one-and-done as Kentucky’s starting quarterback.

If so, it will be interesting to see what Stoops and his offensive brain trust do for next season.

Do they seek another “rental QB” from the transfer portal? Do they give current backups Kaiya Sheron and Destin Wade an authentic chance to compete for the starting job? Would they take the risky step of inserting heralded incoming recruit Cutter Boley, the Lexington Christian Academy star, onto the field against SEC defenses immediately out of high school?

What seems clear is that, for the best chance at long-term program success, Kentucky needs to find a quarterback it can start over multiple years and build around him.

5. Reversing culture slippage. In a departure from much of this season’s tone, the resilient mindset that defined the UK program during the Stoops era rise in fortunes was very much on display in Saturday’s upset of U of L.

Kentucky rallied from 10 points down in the second half twice and overcame a late interception that allowed Louisville to tie the score after UK had, seemingly, seized control of the contest.

The gutty win at U of L hearkened back to the tough-minded Kentucky teams of 2018 through 2021 that went 12-5 in one-score games.

That “culture of winning” at UK had seemed to be evaporating over the past two seasons. Going into Saturday, Kentucky was 2-4 combined in 2022 and 2023 in one-score contests.

With Stoops apparently staying at Kentucky, the most important thing he can achieve moving ahead is to use Saturday’s gritty victory by UK as the launching point in reestablishing his program’s culture.

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