Monday Headlines: Mark Stoops becoming Joker Phillips-level bad

NCAA Football: Kentucky at Florida — Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

Stoops is having another tough season for the third year in a row.

Before the start of the 2024 season, there was real concern regarding Kentucky football’s strength of schedule. The Wildcats faced several of the top teams in the Southeastern Conference and had yet their third transfer quarterback in as many years, with Brock Vandagriff not even having any experience as starter.

Kentucky is almost two months in to their season and they find themselves below .500 for the second time this year. While the Wildcats did pull off one of the more surprising upsets of the season with a win at No. 6 Ole Miss earlier this year, it feels slightly less significant each day.

Other than that one game, Mark Stoops and his team have beaten just Southern Miss (game was called less than three quarters in due to weather) and Ohio. Meanwhile, they’ve been beaten by South Carolina (blowout), Georgia, Vanderbilt and Florida (blowout).

It’s been nothing but bad football for Stoops, his staff and his players, which has become a trend over the last few seasons — beat up on non-conference and struggle against SEC teams even Kentucky should be beating most of the time.

pic.twitter.com/1sPgRykJFs

— WT – Lamont Enthusiast (@WildcatsTongue) October 20, 2024

The trend has become so bad that when looking at a direct comparison to the Joker Phillips era, Stoops isn’t too far off or is even worse in many of the categories listed above.

One glaring difference in the graph is the average salary. Kentucky has fought hard to keep Stoops in Lexington over the last 4-5 years and in doing so has made him one of the top paid coaches in the country.

While Stoops was performing near that level pre-COVID and even in the first year of Will Levis, there’s been a major drop-off in the last few years.

Kentucky will struggle to finish the season at .500, as they host Auburn this Saturday before heading to No. 7 Tennessee next weekend. They then have another bye week before hosting Murray State, traveling to No. 5 Texas and wrapping up the season vs. Louisville.

Tweet of the Day

“There is no place like Kentucky. There is no fanbase like the great BBN. There’s nothing like it in the world.” pic.twitter.com/5eN6iVt1yS

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) October 15, 2024