Given Mark Stoops’ $12 million buyout if he’s fired after the upcoming season, theres’s a sense that it’s not as make-or-break of a season as one might imagine given the Wildcats’ 12-24 record under Stoops and recent bowl drought.

Yet within the state, Stoops has had less on-field success than the two other coaches who have made bowl games more recently: Bobby Petrino at Louisville and Jeff Brohm at Western Kentucky. That’s why it’s difficult to argue he’s higher than third in the state pecking order of head coaches.

Petrino not only has beaten Kentucky the past two seasons at Louisville (38-24 and 44-40), but he also beat Kentucky as Western Kentucky’s coach in 2013, 35-26. Stoops has inherited, but also extended a Kentucky losing streak against arch-rival Louisville that began in 2011. (Petrino also went 4-0 against Kentucky in his first stint in Louisville).

As Stoops has made changes at quarterback and on the offensive coaching staff, the Hilltoppers have won 17 of their past 19 games, and under Brohm have scored more than 30 points 24 times. That’s taken place as Kentucky has shuffled offensive coordinators, now on its third under Stoops. While Western Kentucky won the Conference USA championship, it also beat a common opponent of Kentucky’s in the season opener last season, Vanderbilt, 14-12, in Nashville, the same team that beat Kentucky.

The November meeting against Louisville also raised questions of the coaching staff’s ability to make adjustments. Kentucky  jumped to a 24-7 lead and had 12 first downs in the first half, and two in the second half.

Will the additions of assistant coaches Eddie Gran and Darin Hinshaw be a factor in the second half of games this season? Kentucky’s unproven defense will also be tested again by the a mobile quarterback, Louisville’s Lamar Jackson, who is a lower tier Heisman candidate. Jackson was 8-for-21 against Kentucky last season for 130 yards, a touchdown and interception. But what was more damaging was 17 rushes for 186 yards and two TDs.

That kind of coaching is questioned because Kentucky routinely tops Louisville in recruiting rankings. The 2016 class was No. 35 versus Louisville being No. 38 nationally, according to 247Sports. While Louisville was No. 32 in 2015 and Kentucky was No. 38, in the 2014 class, Kentucky was No. 22, Louisville No. 45. Given the limited in-state talent Kentucky produces relative to other SEC states, Kentucky has little margin for error in local recruiting.

As Stoops and Kentucky look to ascend up the standings in the SEC East, there’s also room to grow in the state where they’ve fallen behind in the Stoops era.