{"id":323730,"date":"2025-12-01T07:45:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323730\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T07:45:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:45:06","slug":"kentucky-has-fired-head-football-coach-mark-stoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323730\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky Has Fired Head Football Coach Mark Stoops"},"content":{"rendered":"

After leading the Kentucky football program for 13 seasons, Mark Stoops<\/a> is being relieved of his duties as the Wildcats\u2019 head football coach. On3\u2019s Chris Low and Pete Nakos announced the news on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Stoops\u2019 buyout<\/a> is worth approximately $38 million and is due within 60 days of his termination, but Low reports that an agreement has been made to spread out the payments over a number of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s owed a $38 million buyout that is payable within 60 days of his termination if fired without cause,\u201d Low wrote. \u201cStoops said last week that he would not walk away from coaching the team on his own accord, but when school officials approached him about a separation, Stoops said he would be willing to negotiate an agreement that would allow Kentucky to spread out the payments over a number of years instead of paying it all in one lump sum.\u201d<\/p>\n

For months, Stoops\u2019 fate appeared all but sealed. Then Kentucky rattled off three straight wins. The Wildcats only needed one win over Vanderbilt or Louisville to return to a bowl game. Neither game was close. The blowout losses made it impossible for Kentucky to try a year 14 with Stoops in charge.<\/p>\n

Stoops was the longest-tenured coach in the Southeastern Conference. With a win at Florida in 2022, he surpassed Bear Bryant (60) with more wins than any other coach in Kentucky football history. Unfortunately, those wins were harder to find in recent years. <\/p>\n

The former Florida State defensive coordinator from Youngstown inherited a two-win program in 2013. Four years into his tenure, he took the Wildcats to the postseason, beginning a school record run of eight straight bowl games. <\/p>\n

His roots served as the cornerstone of his success. Stoops recruited Ohio and the Midwest, pitching the SEC to players who lived in the traditional Big Ten footprint. He turned three-star talents that were overlooked by other programs into stars. Benny Snell<\/a> grew up just outside of Columbus and became the all-time leading rusher in Lexington. <\/p>\n

Snell was the anchor for Stoops\u2019 first big breakthrough. Kentucky defeated Penn State in the Citrus Bowl to cap off a 10-win season in 2018, the program\u2019s first in 41 years. Four years later, he followed that up with another 10-win season and a Citrus Bowl victory. <\/p>\n

Stoops was a streak-snapper who regularly beat some of Kentucky\u2019s most bitter rivals. The Wildcats were 28-point underdogs when they upset Louisville in 2016, just a couple of weeks before Lamar Jackson<\/a> won the Heisman Trophy. It spawned six Governor\u2019s Cup wins in seven meetings. In 2018, Kentucky snapped a 31-game losing streak to Florida. The Wildcats won four of the next six over the Gators. <\/p>\n

Those big wins quit happening when Stoops\u2019 program-building strategy changed in the NIL era. Even though Kentucky had plenty of early transfer portal success stories, like Will Levis<\/a> and Wan\u2019Dale Robinson<\/a>, the Cats struggled to keep up with the Joneses. Throughout 2024, Stoops took multiple opportunities to complain about fundraising. That was on the heels up his \u201cpony up<\/a>\u201d comments and his courtship with Texas A&M at the end of the 2023 season. <\/p>\n

Kentucky won 20 SEC games from 2018-2022. Since they handily defeated Florida on Sept. 30, 2023, they mustered only four wins over SEC foes.<\/p>\n

Mark Stoops was the most successful Kentucky football coach of this generation. As times changed, it was time for a change. <\/p>\n

Mitch Barnhart will begin the pursuit of his replacement. Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein<\/a>, a Louisville native, is expected to be at the top of the list.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss any intel during the Kentucky Football Coaching Search. Join KSR+ to get bonus coverage of the Cats for just $1 for a week.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After leading the Kentucky football program for 13 seasons, Mark Stoops is being relieved of his duties as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-323730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}