Brown: It's time for Mark Stoops, UK football to take next step and clear Georgia hurdle
Mark Stoops is the best football coach Kentucky has had for a number of reasons. He’s the longest tenured. He’s won the most games. He’s taken the Wildcats to a program-record seven straight bowl games. He’s navigating a period of change in college football with the transfer portal and name, image and likeness unlike anything that his predecessors had to deal with before.
His place in UK’s history is solidified.
Now it’s time for No. 20 Kentucky to take the next step. Stoops has checked all the boxes while making the Wildcats consistently good; now he needs to do what has never been done and take the Cats to a place they have never been.
Stoops needs an SEC title to his name. Or, at least the chance to compete for one.
The Cats' two SEC titles came in 1950 and 1976, well before the league had divisions and played title games. Stoops is the second-longest-tenured coach in the SEC but has never won the East Division and earned a spot in the league championship game.
That’s not as big of a leap as it seems this season. The path already started in earnest with last week’s dismantling of Florida, but Saturday represents the biggest hurdle.
The Cats have to go into Athens and beat Georgia. As in, the two-time defending national champion Bulldogs. As in, No. 1-ranked UGA. As in, the winners of the last 13 consecutive meetings in the series, who own an .815 all-time winning percentage against the Cats.
Yeah, that Georgia.
Or maybe not exactly. There’s reason to believe the Dawgs are vulnerable.
They’ve been getting off to slow starts against not-great teams. They trailed South Carolina at halftime and were tied last week at Auburn, after falling behind 10-0 in the first quarter. The Tigers rolled up 219 yards rushing, too, against that vaunted UGA defense, which should make UK’s Ray Davis salivate fresh off a 280-yard performance against Florida.
About those Gators.
For three decades they dominated the Cats, winning 31 consecutive games from 1987 to 2017. Stoops not only stopped that streak, he’s flipped it to where UK has won four of the last six meetings including the last three.
Stoops also has momentum in recruiting, plucking three players from Michigan’s grasp including the latest commitment, Brian Robinson, an edge rusher from Ohio who is ranked 93rd nationally in the 247Sports Composite rankings.
This feels like the time for Kentucky to make its move, or it may not come again. Seriously. The SEC slate is only going to get tougher beginning in the 2024 season with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma and the elimination of divisions.
The Cats only have winning series records in the SEC against Arkansas (5-3), Missouri (9-4) and Vanderbilt (48-43-4), and they’ll have a chance next month to break a 25-25 tie against Mississippi State. UK has had as many 10-loss seasons in its history as it has 10 wins.
It’s a tough place to win in football.
Stoops found that out his first year in 2013, when he went 2-10. But he was also responsible for two of the Cats’ four 10-win seasons including in 2018 when Georgia came to Lexington in November with an SEC East title at stake.
Stoops is the seventh-highest-paid football coach in the nation. He’s got $9 million of reasons why he should stay at Kentucky.
At some point, a top salary may not even be enough compensation for being unable to compete for a championship. That’s why Stoops might just have to stop and listen to a pitch from a place like Michigan State.
The Spartans, current coaching turmoil aside, have finished ranked in the top 10 of The Associated Press final poll four times and in the College Football Playoff poll three times during the course of Stoops’ UK tenure. That included a CFP appearance in 2015.
The Cats’ only two appearances in the top 10 of a final poll were 1950 and 1977. So even with Big Ten expansion, Michigan State presents a better place to compete at the highest level than Kentucky, where the opportunity to play for a league championship comes once in a generation.
Stoops is a generational coach at UK.
Beating Georgia represents the best chance to fill in the only void to his legacy.
More: Kentucky football is 5-0 for 14th time in program history. Here’s how Wildcats have fared
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mark Stoops, Kentucky football vs Georgia in program-defining SEC game
