The Coach Approach: It's been different for Ole Miss, Kentucky, but they meet at same dot on timeline
Sep. 27—OXFORD — Ole Miss and Kentucky have reached the same dot on the timeline in 2022 as top-15 college football programs.
School leaders have taken different approaches to get to the same place.
The place is Vaught-Hemingway Stadium where No. 7 Kentucky and No. 14 Ole Miss meet Saturday morning at 11.
Kentucky's climb has been a product of sticking by the same man, Mark Stoops, now in his 10th season coaching the junior sport in the athletic program.
He's made strides in changing the perception of Kentucky as a basketball-and-nothing-else-matters school.
Improvement for Ole Miss has come much quicker under Lane Kiffin, now in his third season in Oxford.
That's a good thing, since Ole Miss in the modern day hasn't had the patience with its coaches that Kentucky has demonstrated with Stoops.
Stoops' name has gone from once a regular on "hot seat" lists to a regular on lists of possible replacements for a given coaching vacancy.
Kentucky was 4-20 in SEC play in his first three seasons.
The Wildcats opened Year 4 — 2016 — with a 44-35 loss to Southern Miss before losing 45-7 at Florida.
Joker Phillips, the previous coach, had just been fired by the same and current Kentucky AD — Mitch Barnhart — after posting a 4-20 three-season SEC record.
There was buzz that 2016 would be a big season for Stoops.
As it played out, the Wildcats began winning games against middling SEC teams. They defeated South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State, all of which would win six games that season. They all participated in lower-tier bowl games.
Because Kentucky won those regular season games, it rose in the bowl pecking order, and Stoops' team played in the Tax Slayer bowl in Jacksonville, Florida where it lost by two touchdowns to Georgia Tech.
Perhaps the wins did the trick in the decision to retain Stoops. No doubt a reported $12 million buyout was also a factor in the discussion then.
Year Four did show promise, even if the level of improvement was somewhat south of that hoped for by many fans.
The Wildcats finished 7-6 and 4-4 in that important fourth season, the same record they had in 2017, Stoops' fifth season with the same level of bowl game loss, this time in Nashville. That Kentucky team lost 37-34 to Matt Luke's Rebels in Lexington in November.
"When you take over a program, it's like turning around a freight train. It's not like, 'Oh, you just make a turn,'" Kiffin said Monday at his game-week presser. "You've got 100 players, you've got systems, you've got employees. There's a lot to be done. Now it can be done quicker than it used to because of the (transfer), yeah, but it still takes time to do the other parts."
It was in Stoops' sixth season — 2018 — that the program shifted gears.
Kentucky won 10 games and finished ranked No. 11.
A year later, they were hot at the end and finished with eight wins.
They won four times against the all-SEC COVID regular season schedule in 2020 then won the bowl game against North Carolina State. Among the losses was Kiffin's first win at Ole Miss, a Wildcats' failed extra point in overtime the difference in Lexington.
Last year, Kentucky won 10 games and is now on pace to back that up with another 10 or better.
Kiffin is the third Ole Miss coach Stoops has faced.
The legendary career of John Vaught touched parts of four decades. After that, aside from the successful yet controversial 11-year run by Billy Brewer, the average life span for an Ole Miss head coach is 4.03 seasons.
Nobody in administration wants to be "quick hook" with its programs.
Many factors go into the decision to make a change, not the least being support for the program.
Barnhart felt that wavering support when he moved on from Phillips.
Keith Carter felt that lack of support for Luke's program before hiring Kiffin.
It's a big game for both programs — for both coaches — Saturday in Oxford.
For someone, the upward trajectory will be suspended, at least temporarily.
PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.
