Mark Stoops staying at Kentucky after reports he was headed to Texas A&M. ‘I’m a Wildcat!’

A whirlwind Saturday ended with Mark Stoops still Kentucky’s football coach.

Saturday morning reports emerged that Stoops had become one of the leading candidates for the Texas A&M opening before UK’s upset of No. 10 Louisville. After the game, Stoops sidestepped a question about the rumors . By Saturday night multiple Texas A&M websites had reported Stoops was the probable hire, as well as FootballScoop.com. Other national websites, including Sports Illustrated, reported the contract was not finished though, and shortly after midnight Sunday morning news broke that Stoops was staying in Lexington.

“I know there’s been much speculation about me and my job situation the last couple of days,” Stoops tweeted at 1:02 a.m. “It’s true I was contacted about a potential opportunity this weekend, but after celebrating a big win against our rivals with players I love like family, I knew in my heart I couldn’t leave the University of Kentucky right now. I have a great job at a place I love, and I get to work with the best administration and greatest fan base in college football right where I’m at. I’m excited to say I’m a Wildcat!”

Stoops’ decision came after hours of negative social media reactions from some Texas A&M fans about the potential hire.

While the Aggies’ abundant financial resources make it easier to imagine Stoops competing for a spot in the expanded College Football Playoff, he still seemed like an awkward fit for the job.

Before coming to UK, Stoops worked for Jimbo Fisher, the coach Texas A&M fired with a buyout of more than $76 million remaining on his contract, at Florida State. Fisher’s Texas A&M offenses drew frequent criticism, something that also plagued Stoops throughout his tenure at Kentucky.

Stoops is 73-64 all-time at Kentucky but just 35-55 in SEC play. While Stoops has led Kentucky to eight consecutive bowl games, the Wildcats have yet to challenge the SEC’s elite teams, something that would be expected at Texas A&M. Stoops is Kentucky’s leader in wins, SEC wins (35), home wins (50) and ranked wins (13). Stoops is the first UK coach to stay on the job for at least 10 seasons.

When UK hired Stoops, then the defensive coordinator at Florida State, in December 2012 the Wildcats were coming off a 2-10 season. Facing a daunting rebuilding project, Stoops began his Kentucky tenure with a 2-10 record in 2013 but improved to 5-7 in 2014 and 2015 as his recruiting efforts in Ohio and Kentucky began to pay off.

Stoops started the 2016 season with an embarrassing home loss to Southern Miss and a blowout defeat at Florida. In a week three victory over New Mexico State, running back Benny Snell broke onto the scene with a program record four touchdowns. Behind Snell and a physical offensive line, Stoops turned Kentucky into a run-first, defensive-oriented squad. That strategy paid off with the program’s first bowl appearance since 2010 in 2016.

Two years later, Stoops led Kentucky to its first 10-win season since 1977, snapping a 31-game losing streak to Florida along the way. The Wildcats capped the 2018 season with a Citrus Bowl win over Penn State as Snell and National Defensive Player of the Year Josh Allen cemented their status as UK legends.

The 2019 season forced Stoops to pivot again after a rash of quarterback injuries led the staff to move wide receiver Lynn Bowden behind center. Despite lacking a credible passing attack, Bowden emerged as one of the most dynamic offensive players in the country on the way to a Belk Bowl victory over Virginia Tech.

When a 10-game SEC schedule in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the limitations of Kentucky’s run-heavy offense, Stoops fired offensive coordinator Eddie Gran and replaced him with NFL assistant Liam Coen. Coen recruited future Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis as a transfer from Penn State. With Levis throwing to Nebraska transfer Wan’Dale Robinson, a Frankfort native who had initially spurned Kentucky as a high school recruit, the offense finally found some balance on the way to a second 10-win season of the Stoops era.

The success of 2021 raised expectations even though Coen returned to the NFL as offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams.

Kentucky failed to meet those expectations as injuries limited Levis’ effectiveness on the way to a 7-6 2022 season. After the regular season finale, Stoops fired offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello, eventually luring Coen back to Lexington. Coen’s return, which coincided with a commitment from N.C. State transfer Devin Leary, the top-ranked quarterback in the transfer portal at the time, was not enough to fix the offensive issues though as Kentucky fell back into the SEC pack with another 7-5 regular season in 2023.

Upsetting Louisville on Saturday silenced some of the more vocal criticism that Kentucky’s eighth consecutive bowl berth was the product of a weak nonconference schedule by adding the marquee victory the season previously lacked, but there were legitimate reasons to wonder if Stoops had hit a ceiling in Lexington.

Just two years ago it looked as if Kentucky had passed programs like Florida, South Carolina, Missouri and Vanderbilt in the SEC East pecking order, but the Wildcats have lost to three of those teams in the last two seasons. Kentucky dropped a second consecutive game against South Carolina last week as season-long offensive inconsistency reached a new low in a 17-14 defeat in Columbia.

With Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC next season and the league ditching its two-division format, Kentucky’s schedule is likely to get more difficult moving forward, regardless of whether the league stays at eight or nine games.

As some of Stoops’ most vocal critics took issue with Kentucky’s inability to compete with the SEC’s best teams, Stoops took the opportunity to call for more name, image and likeness support following a blowout loss to No. 1 Georgia.

“That’s what they look like, you know what I mean, when you have 85 of them,” Stoops said in response to a critical call on his weekly radio show following the Georgia loss. “I encourage anybody that’s disgruntled to pony up some more.”

Texas A&M has made heavy use of NIL in recent years, helping the Aggies’ land the No. 1-ranked high school recruiting class in the country in 2022.

Stoops would have owed Kentucky a $4 million buyout if he left UK this offseason. His UK contract, which ran through the 2030 season, made him the seventh-highest paid coach in college football at $9 million per year. There was some question as to whether Texas A&M would match that salary as Aggies athletic director Ross Bjork had previously said his next coach’s contract would be heavily incentivized to reward winning rather than including large up-front guarantees.

When it appeared Stoops was set to leave Kentucky, speculation quickly centered around Troy head coach Jon Sumrall, a former Kentucky player and Stoops assistant, as his likely successor, but UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart has avoided that scenario for now.

With Stoops staying in Lexington, the focus now shifts to the pending transfer portal season and December high school signing day. UK will learn its 2023 bowl destination after the conference championship games are played next weekend.

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