What a terrible return on investment we get with Stoops
- Thread starter PensacolaBlue
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whoever UK would hire, in all fairness, UK would have to give him 5 seasons before expecting a breakout.
Stoops has built UK to a 7-5 program in what? 11 years.
Yea, its very possible, especially with Barnhart doing the hiring that UK could fall back, but at the same time, I bet there are a handful of coaches who could average 7 wins.
The real kicker is UL bringing in their guy and turns them around almost immediately, and considering Stoops record against top 10 teams, I'm not sure many people are penciling in a W against them this year.
Stoops has built UK to a 7-5 program in what? 11 years.
Yea, its very possible, especially with Barnhart doing the hiring that UK could fall back, but at the same time, I bet there are a handful of coaches who could average 7 wins.
The real kicker is UL bringing in their guy and turns them around almost immediately, and considering Stoops record against top 10 teams, I'm not sure many people are penciling in a W against them this year.
I can't really complain but UGA has one of the top 10 in Ga committed and he transferred in from out of state and this is a banner year in state. FSU is paying 80g a month for 2, miami is paying near 30 for 1. OSU has a couple they don't brag so i don't know their NIL deal. UT is paying big for a receiver. Clemson has one but he is just an odd kid and fits in with Dabo. But we have done well oos. 25 looks better in state, but never know until it's time to sign
You sure are a football genius! 22 former Stoops players from UK have played in the NFL this year, including starting TN Titans QB Will Levis and former 1st round draft choices Josh Allen and Jamin Davis. Stoops produced the Chuck Bednarik Trophy winner and Bronko Nagurski Award winner in 2018
Stoops ranks 5th in the SEC in average yearly HC salary, behind newly fired Jimbo Fisher, although Stoops ranks #2 in SEC seniority. In 2013, Stoops took over a 2-9 team and has subsequently won 72 games. Stoops was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2018, the first time a UK football coach won the award since 1983. Stoops is the winningest coach in UK football history. 2018 was UK's first 10-win season since 1977. Also, 2018 and 2021 were our first winning SEC seasons since 1977. 2018 and 2021 were also the first times UK completed a football season ranked in the AP top 20 since 1984. Stoops has produced eight consecutive bowls including two Citrus Bowls. Stoops broke the four-decade losing streak to FL. Stoops also broke a long losing streak to SCar. And he is the best football recruiter we have had in modern history.
Just terrible! Horrible!
Lol, if those are what you interpreted to be my very high expectations, I would suggest you take a reading comprehension course.
Being competitive in every game should be a baseline expectation for a coach making 9 million a year.
People keep pointing to Brohm but part of his success this year is that UL plays in a horrible ACC and has an incredibly easy/lucky ACC draw on top of that. Brohm isn’t sitting with one loss if he plays in the SEC.
All true , hes done a good job .. but IMO its lead to coach thats not hungry and rather complacent . Strange hint of irony comparing him to Cal . Both had a lot of success , both have had terrible seasons ( at least according to expectations) . You can state all the good but 2-7 in his last 9 SEC home games . We haven't only lost to better teams we have looked drastically unprepared and gotten ran off the field . Both coaches have had enough success in the past to keep the seat from getting too warm , both in huge contracts that paralyze the University from doing much at all. Hopefully both get things turned around , Cal looks like he finally got some horses , but I'm not seeing any Josh Allens or starting NFL QBs in our immediate future . Hell a Max Duffy would be a game changer .
true
but the only win or loss that matters in this equation is at the end of the season. UL sitting at a top 10 ranking and beats a UK team marginalizes that "lets see how well they would do in the SEC"
Brohm wouldn't be sitting with 1 loss if they just played a typical ACC schedule. Their schedule really broke easy for them. No florida st, no clemson, no north carolina. The toughest opponent they had was Notre dame at home at night (they played well) and then duke who they also got at home. They lost to a 1 win Pitt team at the time and nearly lost to a bad virginia team. This season may very well be fools gold but we will see.
The problem is the expectations are here are so low that nothing will change. Most people are perfectly fine slurping down the list of reasons that UK can’t succeed that they’ve been fed by the basketball-centric UK media for decades.
The problem is that Stoops has slightly increased the talent, but they’ve reached a point where it takes competent, above average scheme, coaching to beat good teams. When a wide receiver doesn’t have a defender in the frame as he catches a TD pass, that’s not talent. When you run the slowest offense in America, that’s not talent. When you refuse to call anything remotely aggressive or creative on offense or defense, that’s not talent
If UK wins, I don't expect many people downplaying how bad UL is in the afterglow
Who GAF about the NFL? This is UK, we want to win. You sound like coach Cal.
The only reason Stoops is the winningest coach in UK history is because he has a 200-year contract. His average per year is 7-5 which is average these days.
That's your overexercised opinion. For you to say I sound like Cal is laughable. You have been anti-Stoops for years. You are one of these cynical fans who clams up when we win and then goes postal when we lose, like clockwork. What Stoops has accomplished for our football program is unprecedented in the modern history of our school. That certainly isn't Cal talking. LOL! It is factual. Take your toxic attitude back to the basketball board.
It's obvious that Stoops isn't complacent. He is recruiting at a high level and working hard on program renovations. Before you bash Stoops for losing to AL, GA, and MO, you might want to take a moment to look and see how those teams have fared this year against other SEC opponents. UK certainly isn't the only team that has been soundly beaten by those guys this season. I don't like it anymore than you do, buy it doesn't mean Stoops is complacent. That is your imagination working.
If you will only be satisfied by UK winning or covering the spread every week, then you will never be satisfied. Not even AL satisfies that standard. If that leads you to imagine that our coaching staff isn't hungry anymore, then you are not being rational. Some people get bent all out of shape by Stoops' salary. But Stoops, while being #2 in the SEC in seniority, is #5 in the SEC in average annual salary. Even Jimbo has been making more than Stoops. Stoops gets paid what he gets paid because our Board of Trustees made a market calculation. You can disagree, but you have never been a Power 5 athletics director or a Trustee. There is no logic to the salary argument but some people these days are enraged with financial jealousy and class envy. That is a sign of the times. It isn't your money, so don't worry about it. The Board of Trustees approves the budget and the salaries. It isn't Barnhart. Barnhart is the face of the athletics department, but he works for the Trustees. The Trustees are senior businessmen and administrators. They know what they are doing. I don't expect to change your mind. Everyone has a right to opinions, but not to their own set of facts. Perhaps you and others will become more curious about the vertical management tree at UK and the reasoning behind complexities of competing in the national coaching market.
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We wasn't competitive against UGA and BAMA and most other schools were. I don't think many want to fire Stoops, but we should compete better than we did against those two.
A) I don’t gamble nor worry about spreads
B ) I don’t really scream about Stoops salary - all SEC coaches are paid millions ,
C) stoops 2-7 HOME record past 2 years screams complacency, thats an unbendable fact .. so is getting blown out way worse than other SEC against Ga Bama and Tn — throwing out Vandy ( maybe ? )
Vertical management and complexities be damned , I know exactly what my eyes tell me
60-70+ years of history says that we are very likely to go back to winning 2-4 games/year.......AND all of the other many, many programs that are in our shoes. If you look at almost any poor programs throughout the history of college football.....either they don't make a good hire or they make a good hire who only stays for a brief period of time........but they don't change their program.
The only times programs have changed their status is when they win a lottery of a coach (see a below) or they do it with longevity (b below).
a) For example, Miami was basically a .500 program who people didn't think much of until they hired Schnelly and Johnson back to back. These 2 coaches won so much that it launched the program to elite status. And even though they haven't done a lot recently, many still view them as a top 25 program. Understandably there are few examples of this.
b) There are many other programs that were propelled forward by using longevity of a coach winning. Florida State, Virginia Tech, Penn State, and many others. This is easily the most likely option by far.
So, if you want to change the UK program the most likely option is to ride a coach for long period of time. Unfortunately there's no magic marker or threshold that tells us where the make/break point is. About the only thing you can say is that the longer you win the more likely you're likely to stay.
Which brings us to Stoops. Despite what any individual fan things, he has progressed the program quite a bit nationally. Records, streaks, etc all have fallen. Facilities built, NFL guys registered, etc all have risen. Media consistently herald the job Stoops has done and continues to do......even flipping the viewpoints of guys like Finebaum over time. The very fact that we are discussing not being happy with going 7-5, 8-4 every year is a testament to how much the program perception has changed.......no matter how many cupcakes we play.
Is Stoops an elite coach? Heck no. He drives me nuts at times. We all want to win more. But understand the actual situation. We are way more likely to hire a better option at coach in the future because of what Stoops has done. If we don't fall back to 4 wins/year, it'll be because of what Stoops (and to a lesser extent Brooks) has done. If my kids and grandkids grow up without ever knowing the agony of watching 3-4 wins every single year, it'll be because of the groundwork Stoops et al has laid.
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I don’t want Stoops to leave for a variety of reasons but the biggest thing is this even if we do hit a home run that coach is going to leave unless he’s like a sumrall who played here it is what it is. The program IS stagnant and our performance at home these last couple of years has been unacceptable. We need him to be the guy to figure it out tho and as bad ass the defense has been I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that will get corrected. To me we Have to be more explosive in offense. That’s the key
It will be 5 or so wins a year anyway if the conference goes to 9 games. But if we are gonna be happy just beating MAC teams, let's join the MAC.
Didn't say or imply you do. I was only discussing an unrealistic bar for expectations.
Correct. And Stoops, while being #2 in seniority in the SEC, is only #5 in average annual salary. In light of the fact that Stoops took our program from 2-9 to an annual bowl participant with two 10-win seasons, his contract is fair.
No, of course it isn't complacency. That comes out of your imagination. Stoops continues to recruit very well and raise money. Those tasks do not happen that way if he was complacent, not to mention the fact that Stoops is holding the core of his staff together by retaining Marrow, White, and Coen. If Stoops was complacent, these guys would be out of here, and Coen would never have returned. And Mike wouldn't be here either. It isn't like they don't have alternatives. Obviously, they do. At some point, we have to accept that these other teams are just beating us because they are outplaying us. Criticize all the penalties and I am with you. Criticize the OL and I am with you. But this coaching staff is anything but complacent. On the contrary, they are fighting an uphill battle and putting together another strong recruiting class against the odds.
For reasons already given, I don't agree. When you say management and complexities be damned, that is because you don't understand their importance. But don't feel bad about that. You are certainly not alone. Most people don't understand something they have never had to do by themselves.
I responded to statements that I do not agree with, and I gave you my reasons. Call it whatever you wish. Ciao, brother.
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Stoops has had bad losses and disappointing seasons, but in no way has he hurt our program based on where it was when he started. Just a completely idiotic take.
20+ years of 7 win minimum seasons with a few 10 (maybe 11) win seasons thrown in is going to do a lot more for the UK job long-term than a bunch of fans trying to unseat their most successful coach of all-time because they "expect better."
See how fast we sink back down to the basement if we make 2 bad (or even just mediocre) hires after letting Stoops go. Like someone else said above, keeping us respectable for an entire generation is going to elevate us more than anything. In 10 more years, even if we don't get better than Stoops' current average, we will have kids/coaches coming to us who have no memory whatsoever of "Kentucky football". We will be seen as that upper-mid level SEC team that can take off with the right coach, instead of the view when Stoops came here which was the basketball school that can probably beat Vandy most years and get 7 wins if the cards fall right.
See how fast we sink back down to the basement if we make 2 bad (or even just mediocre) hires after letting Stoops go. Like someone else said above, keeping us respectable for an entire generation is going to elevate us more than anything. In 10 more years, even if we don't get better than Stoops' current average, we will have kids/coaches coming to us who have no memory whatsoever of "Kentucky football". We will be seen as that upper-mid level SEC team that can take off with the right coach, instead of the view when Stoops came here which was the basketball school that can probably beat Vandy most years and get 7 wins if the cards fall right.
Stoops is not perfect but he's been really good for Ky football. I'm just not convinced anyone else that we could get would do any better over time. They may even be worse.
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