![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2244069332.jpg\")
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Mark Stoops took Kentucky to bowl games eight seasons in a row but had a 5-7 record in 2025. Michael Chang \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Kentucky is firing head coach Mark Stoops, a source close to Stoops told The Athletic Sunday, ending the tenure of the winningest football coach in school history one day after a second consecutive blowout loss to rival Louisville.<\/p>\n
The decision to fire Stoops is a costly one. His contract calls for a $36 million buyout, all of which is due within 60 days, a result of extensions from Stoops\u2019 winning years.<\/p>\n
Stoops finished 72-80 in 13 seasons. That included a run of eight consecutive bowl games from 2016 to 2023, with two 10-win seasons in there (one of them, the 2021 season, was later vacated due to NCAA violations). He won four of his last five matchups with Florida after the Gators had lost just twice to the Wildcats in the previous 40 years.<\/p>\n
But the program fell back to historical precedent in the last two years, going 9-15 overall and 3-13 in SEC play. Longtime right-hand man and ace recruiter Vince Marrow left for Louisville last offseason in a gut punch to the program.<\/p>\n
The Wildcats rallied late this season behind redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley but lost to Vanderbilt and Louisville by a combined score of 86-17 in the final two games.<\/p>\n
In Stoops\u2019 last two games against Louisville, the Wildcats were outscored 82-14. Following Saturday\u2019s loss, Stoops said there was a zero percent chance he would step down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be here, as far as I\u2019m concerned,\u201d Stoops said. \u201cNow I can\u2019t control what decision (is going) to be made. If you\u2019re asking me, I said zero. Zero means zero.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dec 1, 2025<\/p>\n
Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n
Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n
Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Stoops took Kentucky to bowl games eight seasons in a row but had a 5-7 record in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":416454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1428,8801,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-416453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-kentucky-wildcats","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115642377035364632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}