Tuesday Headlines: Paul Finebaum calls out Mark Stoops

NCAA Football: Louisville at Kentucky — Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

He didn’t hold back.

Like what John Calipari did for Kentucky Basketball, Mark Stoops has done the same for Kentucky football.

Both programs were pretty much in the dumps when the two coaches (one former and the ladder current) took over in Lexington.

Specifically for football, Kentucky could occasionally pull a so-so recruit but there was little player development and recruitment outside of the state of KY.

Now, under Stoops, the last decade has mostly been large success.

Last year, though, Kentucky was terrible — winning four games and snapping their eight year streak of making a bowl game.

It wasn’t just their play on the football field that decreased but major lack of continuity at the offensive coordinator position and issues culturally around the program have both recently become problems.

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum didn’t mince any words when bringing this to light last week, saying the following.

“Mark Stoops makes a lot of money for a coach who hasn’t had a good season in a while. He’s had, if I remember correctly, three inconsistent years out of four. He had that one really good year. But the program, to me, looks like it’s spiraling out of control. … This is one show that has always been supportive of Mark Stoops, but I really don’t like what we’re seeing. The last — he had that good year in ‘21. In ‘20 he was 5-6 and then he had that record in ‘21 that I think they went to the Citrus Bowl when they had 10 wins. Four out of the last five seasons have essentially been mediocre or worse. That is a bad, bad trend.”

While Stoops does make over $9 million per year and his assistants are also well-compensated, he has led the Wildcats to two 10-win seasons in the last six years.

Stoops hasn’t delivered anywhere near that rate over the last few seasons, but fans and Finebaum both have to ask the question — who is out there that wants to come to Kentucky and can do a better job than Stoops?