Motivated or not, Mark Stoops has to prove it all over again
Mark Stoops heard the buzz. He knows the headlines. He’s well aware that “Motivated Mark Stoops” became the offseason meme of Kentucky football Twitter. But when the veteran coach took the podium at SEC Media Days, he made one thing clear: he hasn't changed a bit.
“There’s been zero change,” Stoops said today at SEC Media Days. “As I talked a lot in the offseason, I love how people grab certain aspects of things that I said.”
Whether that’s Stoops brushing off the narrative or subtly leaning into it, what matters most to Kentucky fans is what comes next. Because for all the systems, structures, and slogans that have propped up this program under Stoops, the product on the field last year was hard to defend.
“We’ve been very consistent. We’ve done everything right,” Stoops said. “We feel like we have a lot of systems and processes in place to be successful, but we needed a change.”
That's where the new roster comes in. Mark Stoops and Kentucky brought in 50 new players in the off-season. That's right, 50. With a limit of 85, there are more new players than returners, by a lot. How those new guys blend will be a major sign for Kentucky's success or failure in 2025.
Stoops didn’t spell out the changes beyond the roster turnover. And that’s where the disconnect begins. Because for all the internal belief and culture talk, it’s the external results that count. Since the 2022 loss to South Carolina, Kentucky has just one SEC home win — fewer than South Carolina and Vanderbilt at Kroger Field over that span. That’s not noise. That’s math. And in Year 12, that can’t happen. But it did.
The goodwill Stoops built from 2016–2021 hasn’t vanished, but it’s been strained. Last season’s 4-8 finish — the program’s worst since 2015 — drained a lot of equity. And when the 2024 offense looked stuck in neutral more often than not, it's fair to ask: can familiarity really fix things?
For the first time since Eddie Gran’s tenure ended in 2020, Stoops will have the same offensive coordinator in back-to-back seasons. Bush Hamdan is back, and the staff believes that continuity will spark progress.
But continuity isn’t the same as improvement. And that’s the line Stoops has to walk this fall. Because the fan base isn’t all-in anymore. Not blindly. Not after back-to-back Novembers that collapsed under the weight of poor execution and lifeless gameplans.
The belief, Stoops said, hasn’t wavered inside the program. “We’ve done everything right.” That confidence is admirable — and risky. Because what worked before isn’t guaranteed to work again. And at this point, faith without results doesn’t carry as much weight in the Bluegrass.
Mark Stoops may not feel like he’s changed. But to keep moving this program forward — and to keep BBN on board — something will have to.