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O’Gara: Why 2024 doesn’t feel like it’ll be one of those years for Kentucky
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History says that Kentucky is due for one of those years.
In 2018, UK delivered its best season since the Jimmy Carter administration by ending a 3 decades-long losing streak against Florida en route to a 10-win campaign and its first winning SEC season since 1977. Three years later, Will Levis and Wan’Dale Robinson fueled another 10-win season that ended with another Citrus Bowl victory against a Big Ten squad.
So 3 years later, why doesn’t it feel like UK is in for one of those years?
It’s complicated.
The argument for 2024 being one of those years — besides just the whole “every 3 seasons” trend — is that UK ranks No. 1 in the SEC and No. 14 in FBS in percentage of returning production. More than anything else, that typically bodes well for year-to-year improvement. Plus, 2021 saw the Cats take a massive leap forward with a first-time starting quarterback leading a new-look offense, so why can’t this group do the same?
It’s a fair question, though it’s worth mentioning that Bush Hamdan’s arrival as the new OC came in mid-February, which made for a later-than-normal implementation of the new offense. There isn’t necessarily one specific thing that’ll be impossible to overcome — a running back position in flux doesn’t feel like what we saw with Benny Snell in 2018 and Chris Rodriguez in 2021 — though as many UK fans have been made aware of, Stoops boasts just 2 victories vs. SEC teams that finished with winning conference records (2017 South Carolina and 2018 Florida). UK faces 5 Power conference teams that won at least 9 games last year. Make of that what you will.
Let’s instead focus on Stoops. No longer does he seem like the Youngstown tough, “nobody believes in us” type of coach who chomped at the bit to start seasons like this. Stoops seems more like he’s at the end of his rope.
Mark Stoops talked about his role as a fundraiser at SEC Media Days. That was putting it politely. Kentucky’s head coach was much more candid about the Cats’ current NIL situation.
https://t.co/cYZ0ldLzso pic.twitter.com/ePSiywbFvo
— Nick Roush (@RoushKSR) July 24, 2024
Mind you, that came months after Stoops’ awkward Texas A&M flirtation. For a couple of hours, it looked like he was leaving Lexington for College Station after 11 seasons on the job, until he ultimately wasn’t. Believe who you want with that story. You know what neither said came out and said? “It never came close to happening.” Nope. Either way, there was at least some smoke.
Raising NIL capital at a place like Texas A&M, which just agreed to cover a $76 million buyout for Jimbo Fisher not to work, had to seem far less daunting than doing so in Lexington. If that was a driving force behind Stoops’ reported interest in A&M, nobody should be surprised.
That’s not to say that there’s no coming back from that. Coaches have flirted with other jobs before and come back without skipping a beat. Remember when the late Mike Leach nearly left Washington State for Tennessee after the 2017 season but ex-Vols AD John Currie didn’t have a job to offer him? The following season, Washington State earned its first top-10 finish in 15 years and Gardner Minshew’s mustache was the talk of the sport.
Maybe a year like that is in store for Kentucky and Brock Vandagriff’s red beard will be copied across the Bluegrass State.
But even the way that Stoops spoke about his offense at SEC Media Days sounded … annoyed. “Wouldn’t be SEC Media Days if I didn’t have to talk about a new offensive coordinator,” he said in Dallas.
That’s the sound of a man who has had a new offensive coordinator in each season during the 2020s. The last time that Stoops didn’t have a new top assistant running his offense was 2020, which also prompted an offensive overhaul in the final year of Eddie Gran.
Stoops came across as someone who believed he earned stability as the SEC’s new elder statesman, yet the Earth beneath his feet continues to shift. Last year, he was tasked with overhauling the offense with plug-and-play transfers at quarterback, offensive line and running back. Stoops even spent big to get 2021 OC Liam Coen back in Lexington. It resulted in an offense that averaged 29.1 points per game, but if you took away the 7 non-offensive scores, UK averaged 25.3 points per game. That group failed to hit 28 points in its final 6 SEC games.
Perhaps more alarming was UK’s defense. Not only was it Stoops’ worst group since 2017, but what happened at season’s end left some scratching their heads. Following the A&M flirtation, Stoops didn’t make a single defensive staff change. In fact, the only coach he fired on his entire on-field staff was receivers coach Scott Woodward. That didn’t exactly send the message that change was imminent.
That doesn’t mean that Stoops should’ve gone full-Brian Kelly and gutted his entire defensive staff (it’s ironic that Matt House was UK’s DC in 2018 and he was the face of LSU’s historic defensive struggles in 2023). It does, however, make you wonder if Stoops’ patience is wearing thin after he chose the path of least resistance. Staff continuity is great, but only if it warrants it.
Time will tell if UK’s defense, which had a preseason All-SEC selection at every level (DL Deone Walker, LB Jamon Dumas-Johnson and DB Maxwell Hairston) will bounce back. The last time that Stoops had consecutive defenses that finished outside the top 30 in scoring was 2016-17. Avoiding that, plus Vandagriff living up to that 5-star billing, could define a pivotal year for Stoops.
Maybe this year’s squad will have a DNA that’ll spark Stoops as he heads into this new era of the sport. Alternatively, a team predicted to finish 11th in the SEC won’t sniff those 12-team Playoff conversations and it’ll be anything but “one of those years” at Kentucky. The latter feels more likely.
Now would be as good a time as ever for some of that Youngstown tough to make its gritty return to Lexington.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
