Why the stat that annoyed Mark Stoops on his radio show is misleading

Mark Stoops’ controversial comments on Monday’s radio show about Kentucky fans needing to “pony up” with name, image and likeness donations if the Wildcats want to compete with Georgia moving forward were preceded by a caller’s citation of a statistic that seemed to annoy the UK coach.

“The big debate among my friends and all the folks who spend a lot of money and time to invest in the program is, ‘Are we going to get over the hump to the next stage?’” the caller identified as Jason in Louisville said. “I saw a stat that was really kind of worrisome. In your tenure, only twice have we beaten a team that had a winning record in conference. It just feels like we’re making hay on mediocre to bad teams, so what’s it going to take to really get over the hump when we play teams that have the talent like the Georgias do and Alabamas do?”

While Stoops questioned the validity of Jason’s stat, the number he cited is correct.

It just doesn’t tell the whole story.

Yes, Kentucky’s only wins over teams that finished the season with a winning record in SEC play since Stoops was hired before the 2013 season came against South Carolina in 2017 and Florida in 2018. Stoops’ record against teams that finished with a winning record in SEC play is 2-26.

But 12 of those losses came to Georgia or Alabama, the two top programs in college football over the past decade, and 11 of the losses came in Stoops’ first three seasons on the job, before he had built the program back to bowl worthy.

Arguing that only a win over a conference rival with an above-.500 record is a quality victory sets too high a bar for a league as competitive as the SEC that plays just eight conference games.

Kentucky has beaten five teams that finished SEC play at 4-4 during Stoops’ tenure, meaning the Wildcats’ victory prevented any of them from having a winning record in SEC play. Last season, Kentucky beat a Mississippi State team that was 4-4 in SEC play but finished the year at 9-4 and ranked 20th nationally. That has to be considered a quality win.

Just more than a week ago, Kentucky beat a Florida team that is currently 2-1 in SEC play and is in contention for a winning record this season. From 2018 to 2021, Kentucky also beat four Power Five conference teams that recorded winning records in their league in a bowl game. Two of those bowl wins came against teams that were ranked in the final Associated Press top 25.

Since 2017, SEC East teams have combined for 23 regular season wins against teams that finished with a winning record in SEC play. Georgia accounted for nine of those wins and tallied two more in postseason play. No other SEC East team has more than four in that span.

“Georgia is one for a reason,” Stoops said in his response to Jason on the radio show. “I give them a lot of credit. Would I like to be there, yes? But there’s a big difference between one and everybody else.”

Jason’s argument that the “next stage” for Kentucky is beating Georgia and Alabama seems to be skipping a few steps. The Wildcats could contend for a New Year’s Six bowl berth this season even after the blowout loss at Georgia. They could contend for a spot in the expanded 12-team playoff starting next season without beating either of those programs.

If the bar for success is beating traditional powers like Georgia and Alabama, Stoops is probably right that significant investment in the NIL market will be needed, even if asking fans who already pay large sums to go to games for more money after a blowout loss is tone deaf. But those programs had advantages over Kentucky before NIL and will continue to do so after it.

None of that is to say Stoops is above criticism.

With a $9 million salary, Stoops is tied for the seventh-highest paid coach in the country now, according to USA Today’s database. That salary is a representation of the unprecedented success he has had at Kentucky compared to the program’s historic standards, but he is also the only coach in the top 10 not expected to compete for championships.

Stoops countered Jason’s argument with UK’s oft-cited statistic that Kentucky is tied for the fourth-most wins among SEC teams since 2018. While true, that statistic also ignores the context that UK’s 45 wins in that span include 15 against Group of Five or FCS foes. UK is sixth in the league in conference wins since 2018.

More damning than just two wins against teams with winning SEC records since 2017 is seven losses to teams with losing SEC records in that same time frame. If Kentucky is to ever contend for a spot in the SEC championship game moving forward, it will need to first learn to avoid demoralizing upset losses like the one to Vanderbilt last season one day after Stoops signed his latest contract extension.

The fact that archrival Louisville recorded a signature win over Notre Dame on Saturday to move to 6-0 in the first season of the Jeff Brohm era only adds to the tension around UK this week. The looming changes to the SEC schedule when Texas and Oklahoma join the league next year increase the pressure for Kentucky to perform against better teams too.

Stoops made no secret of the size of the challenge facing his program.

“You’re climbing the ladder in the SEC. You think it’s easy?” Stoops said on his radio show. “I sat here and watched a bunch of people try to do it. It’s not easy at a lot of different schools. So, believe me, I respect Jason and want his support. I’m not being sensitive about it, but bring it on Jason. See if you can do it.”

How Kentucky fits in the evolving college football landscape is far from certain, but it is too simplistic to gauge its success moving forward based on one statistic alone.

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