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Possible loss of Marrow to Southern Miss.?

No, we will never consistently be in the mix to win the SEC. In the mix meaning we will be in the next down from the teams that are consistently fighting for the title (UGA, Bama, Texas, etc.) Then be ready when everything comes together and have a great year and actually swing with the big boys.

We definitely have the talent to do that, we just haven’t had the coaching.

And you didn’t say this, but I feel like this has to be said re: recruiting: just throwing out the stat that we are 10th/12th/14th in the SEC with no other qualifier is deceptive and silly. The difference between the number 14 overall class in the country and the 21st overall class is one or two players being ranked a 5.8 4* vs a 5.7 3*. Basically, there is no difference. But there may be 4 SEC teams ranked between the 14th and 21st ranked class, so it makes it look like you’re near dead last in the conference when in reality you have essentially the same overall roster talent as 8 other teams in the conference
Absolutely right re ranking but people don't want to hear that, doesn't fit their agenda. Difference in maybe 6th in the conference and 12th is minimal, maybe as little as one player.
 
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He doesn't strike me as a head coach. He's a relationship guy and a person who placates talent. If Stoops left I'd be cool but I would like to keep marrow for recruiting. He works hard for Kentucky and he's responsible for the most recruiting success we have ever had. Why would anyone want him to leave other than he is tethered to Stoops? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Marrow would do about as well as a HC as Kenny Payne did, IMO. You're exactly right. He's the cool grandpa/uncle type that kids gravitate to, but I think he could be lax on discipline.
 
Absolutely right re ranking but people don't want to hear that, doesn't fit their agenda. Difference in maybe 6th in the conference and 12th is minimal, maybe as little as one player.
The only " agenda" some of us have is seeing Kentucky be competitive in the SEC. Those of us who have been watching UK football since the 1960s would like to see us compete at least once with the upper echelon of the league
You say it can't be done. I say that is a self fulfilling prophecy.
 
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The only " agenda" some of us have is seeing Kentucky be competitive in the SEC. Those of us who have been watching UK football since the 1960s would like to see us compete at least once with the upper echelon of the league
You say it can't be done. I say that is a self fulfilling prophecy.
We played UGA for the SEC East title a few years ago. The point isn’t that we can never compete, it’s that we aren’t going to ever consistently recruit like UGA or Bama. Given that fact, we are actually recruiting in the vicinity of our reasonable ceiling. Can we do better? Marginally, sure. Does the recruiting acumen of Stoops and Marrow mean they shouldn’t be gone at the end of the season? No.

I’m all about moving on from Stoops, it just drives me nuts that we as fans have to start denigrating the legitimate success he’s had here to somehow justify wanting him gone. He’s the best coach 95% of fans have ever had. We’re recruiting about as good as we likely ever will. He’s also gotten complacent and clearly doesn’t have the edge anymore and it’s hurting the program. Those points can both be true at the same time
 
The intense hatred of Stoops is disturbing. Easy to tell who has had substantial losses betting on games.
We are 4-6 and probably will miss a bowl game. Did you expect a parade for Stoops lol.

Btw I don't hate Stoops. I don't even know him personally to hate him. I appreciate what he has done for UK for most of his coaching term here. But it's definitely time for a change. Pretty solid recruiter especially for UK standards and seems like a good blue collar guy...but he can't coach a good offense to save his life.
 
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And Vandy lost to Georgia State.

Sure, they’ve punched above their weight, but that means they have done the exact opposite of Kentucky. UK has averaged 20th in recruiting the last 4 years, and Vandy about 40th. They have Pavia, and he’s a heady player on the college level, but we likely have 8 or 9 defensive starters who would start for Vandy, if they were on that team.

If Vandy is truly more physically talented than UK, that is a damning indictment on the Kentucky staff’s ability to recruit (and/or develop) talent.

I think k UK is deeper, but the only one I can say would
And Vandy lost to Georgia State.

Sure, they’ve punched above their weight, but that means they have done the exact opposite of Kentucky. UK has averaged 20th in recruiting the last 4 years, and Vandy about 40th. They have Pavia, and he’s a heady player on the college level, but we likely have 8 or 9 defensive starters who would start for Vandy, if they were on that team.

If Vandy is truly more physically talented than UK, that is a damning indictment on the Kentucky staff’s ability to recruit (and/or develop) talent.

I dont think Vandy is more talented than UK except QB, who is just a player and plays better than he probably should. UK is more talented overall, but weren't that day. I think OM is more talented than UK, with a coach several schools would like, but they weren't better than UK that day. Upsets happen every week.
 
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I think k UK is deeper, but the only one I can say would


I dont think Vandy is more talented than UK except QB, who is just a player and plays better than he probably should. UK is more talented overall, but weren't that day. I think OM is more talented than UK, with a coach several schools would like, but they weren't better than UK that day. Upsets happen every week.
Grumpyolddawg, I love you man, BUT, losing 2/3 to Vandy, 3 straight to S. Carolina, 10/12 to UT, 12 in a row to Georgia, getting blasted by a bad Florida team, that is not what you call an "upset".

That is a bad trend.

If this was Georgia, Georgia fans would be at Kirby's door with the torches. You guys ran off a coach who AVERAGED 10 wins per year. If losing games like that are not good enough for Georgia, it should not be acceptable to UK fans who want better for our football program.

This "upset" narrative is a pathetic excuse for losing games we shouldn't be losing 12 years into CMS tenure.
 
Grumpyolddawg, I love you man, BUT, losing 2/3 to Vandy, 3 straight to S. Carolina, 10/12 to UT, 12 in a row to Georgia, getting blasted by a bad Florida team, that is not what you call an "upset".

That is a bad trend.

If this was Georgia, Georgia fans would be at Kirby's door with the torches. You guys ran off a coach who AVERAGED 10 wins per year. If losing games like that are not good enough for Georgia, it should not be acceptable to UK fans who want better for our football program.

This "upset" narrative is a pathetic excuse for losing games we shouldn't be losing 12 years into CMS tenure.

I wouldn't be happy for sure with those results. But if that happens we would be stuck, 134m buyout would be hard to come up with. Richt wasn't fired so much for the wins. I posted the details here one day, sure people wanted to win a championship, but being in the hunt kept most happy. It was his unwillingness to make changes more than losses. And when he made one he made sure it was a bad one.
 
Marrow is a lot like Stoops in that they are great salesmen but terrible coaches. Marrow’s TE groups have done a whole lot of nothing for the most part since he’s been here. And Stoops’ shortcomings are well documented.
I sort of disagree. We don’t know what the TEs can really do because they just aren’t part of the game plan.
 
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I wouldn't be happy for sure with those results. But if that happens we would be stuck, 134m buyout would be hard to come up with. Richt wasn't fired so much for the wins. I posted the details here one day, sure people wanted to win a championship, but being in the hunt kept most happy. It was his unwillingness to make changes more than losses. And when he made one he made sure it was a bad one.
Now replace Mark Richt name with Mark Stoops in your post and you will get exactly where most Cat fans are right now.

Even when CMS makes a change, it turns out to be for the worst.
 
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Nobody coming in here to take Stoops job is going to want anybody from the old regime. As for Marrows recruiting it is consistently 12 to 14 ranked in SEC every year. I don't call that good recruiting if we ever want to be any kind of force in this conference
Who should we beat in SEC recruiting. Bama, Auburn, Tennessee, A&M, Texas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, LSU, USC, Florida, Georgia are probably always recruiting better than us. That puts us at 12th automatically. USC has a good in state base.
 
I know the tweet itself doesn’t specify, but was listening to KSR and they credited Rowland with breaking news that Marrow is a current candidate for the Southern Miss. head coaching position. I’ll be watching this one with curiosity because I imagine Marrow leaving would give us quite the clue to Stoops’ plans going forward.

Southern Miss is horrible, I guess he can go there for his retirement. But I could see him being offered by Ohio State as a Chief Recruiter Position. Sends him home with a chance for a championship.
 
Now replace Mark Richt name with Mark Stoops in your post and you will get exactly where most Cat fans are right now.

Even when CMS makes a change, it turns out to be for the worst.

It's a tough situation to be in. Not everyone wanted change, and quite a few were anti Kirby. Richt did some good things at UGA, But when illness struck his family, winning football games just wasn't a priority for him, can't say I wouldn't be the same way, but I was never a P5 head coach either. If UK needs/wants a change by all means they should make one. But because of demographics and location it won't be easy for a new coach to climb the ladder without bigNIL which UK may have.
 
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But the SEC teams are who you play 8 and likely 9 soon times a year those others don't mean anything till post season.
Being 25th puts you in range to play with teams. It’s not going to be the same roster as teams always in the top 5 but it’s should be good enough to compete and sneak up on somebody and the teams that are a few spots ahead etc is negligible difference. Teams that can coach, evaluate, and manage rosters are going to win most consistently in their pack of teams that recruit where they do.
 
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Who should we beat in SEC recruiting. Bama, Auburn, Tennessee, A&M, Texas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, LSU, USC, Florida, Georgia are probably always recruiting better than us. That puts us at 12th automatically. USC has a good in state base.
So your position is we can't improve recruiting. Why stay in the conference at all. Can't never did ANYTHING.
 
If he leaves I wish him the best, he has been a great recruiter at KY and getting away from Stoops and a losing program.
 
So your position is we can't improve recruiting. Why stay in the conference at all. Can't never did ANYTHING.
Reality is reality. Think about it from a basketball point of view. Ole Miss isn't likely to ever out recruit Texas or Tennessee or UK. They can try but it won't happen, not regularly at least.

What they can do is position their recruiting closer the top programs. UK may be 12th in the SEC but 20-24th nationally. We always had a couple of problems in football. We have almost no in state recruiting base for top tier players but Stoops has started getting most of the ones we have. We have little program success in football. That goes back nearly 75 years. Our facilities are better but still don't compete with top programs.

Now we have an even bigger problem. Money. There is almost nothing we can do about that. UK doesn't have dozens of super rich boosters and our fanbase, in general, is behind national income averages. Finally, we are a small market school as well and there is nothing we can do about that either.

So, we have a football program with few easy recruiting targets that has a losing history in football and now that money is king in recruiting, we have both a small market and a poor state.

Now, explain to me this fantasy you have that some new coach can overcome all these hurdles. Stoops has done the impossible with our recruiting and you guys think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

Y'all may succeed in running Stoops off. I'd sure leave if I were him. He isn't perfect but he's done so much for our program yet the ingrates have little appreciation for what he's done.

I'll remind all of you of this when we hop back on the perennial coaching carousel, always failing but always ready to rehire and roll those dice.
 
Being 25th puts you in range to play with teams. It’s not going to be the same roster as teams always in the top 5 but it’s should be good enough to compete and sneak up on somebody and the teams that are a few spots ahead etc is negligible difference. Teams that can coach, evaluate, and manage rosters are going to win most consistently in their pack of teams that recruit where they do.

If the decision makers at UK feel it's time for a change then by all means it's time to make one. But whoever they bring in better be someone who can bring the the recruiting from the 10-12 range to the 6-8 range then the results will be about the same. Bama wasn't on top for so long because Saban had some secret formula, they were on top because they had better players.

I know Sumrall is the choice of the fans, and he could be the guy to get UK over the top and where it's fans want to be. His resume is very good and says he deserves a chance.
 
If the decision makers at UK feel it's time for a change then by all means it's time to make one. But whoever they bring in better be someone who can bring the the recruiting from the 10-12 range to the 6-8 range then the results will be about the same. Bama wasn't on top for so long because Saban had some secret formula, they were on top because they had better players.

I know Sumrall is the choice of the fans, and he could be the guy to get UK over the top and where it's fans want to be. His resume is very good and says he deserves a chance.
Yep. And again, I’ve repeatedly said that stoops has earned his shot at righting the ship on paper. Even though he doesn’t seem to be built in any way for the current state of the game on or off the field. But his lack of energy mentally puts him in a spot that it can’t be fixed if that can’t change and it doesn’t feel like it can. It’s not that we’re trying to get over the top as much as it’s that we’re in steady decline for 3 seasons relative to having personnel improvements we’ve had. It takes more than what we’re getting now in order to perform at the same level. The new schedule format exposes that.
 
Reality is reality. Think about it from a basketball point of view. Ole Miss isn't likely to ever out recruit Texas or Tennessee or UK. They can try but it won't happen, not regularly at least.

What they can do is position their recruiting closer the top programs. UK may be 12th in the SEC but 20-24th nationally. We always had a couple of problems in football. We have almost no in state recruiting base for top tier players but Stoops has started getting most of the ones we have. We have little program success in football. That goes back nearly 75 years. Our facilities are better but still don't compete with top programs.

Now we have an even bigger problem. Money. There is almost nothing we can do about that. UK doesn't have dozens of super rich boosters and our fanbase, in general, is behind national income averages. Finally, we are a small market school as well and there is nothing we can do about that either.

So, we have a football program with few easy recruiting targets that has a losing history in football and now that money is king in recruiting, we have both a small market and a poor state.

Now, explain to me this fantasy you have that some new coach can overcome all these hurdles. Stoops has done the impossible with our recruiting and you guys think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

Y'all may succeed in running Stoops off. I'd sure leave if I were him. He isn't perfect but he's done so much for our program yet the ingrates have little appreciation for what he's done.

I'll remind all of you of this when we hop back on the perennial coaching carousel, always failing but always ready to rehire and roll those dice.
Stoops gets Top 10 coaching money. The results are unacceptable with that level of pay.
 
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