The great majority of sports fans are not blessed with a great deal of patience, especially when they believe their favorite team is underperforming.
Oftentimes, fans’ expectations are completely unreasonable, believing their team should seldom (or never) lose a game and always perform well. I still believe most fans are reasonable, but when they observe their team playing poorly, the coach is the first one to blame.
There are usually other factors that come into play, but sometimes replacing a coach is the best solution for the betterment of a program that’s floundering.
That was the case when University of Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari more than wore out his welcome. After a successful nine or 10 years, fans grew tired of seeing their beloved Wildcats repeatedly underachieve during his final four years in Lexington.
The same scenario is currently affecting the UK football program.
When Mark Stoops took over at Kentucky in 2012, he was inheriting a program that needed an overhaul. The team had just sunk to a 2-10 record in 2011, and went 0-8 in the SEC. The Cats repeated the same marks in his first season at the helm, but progress was being made.
After a pair of 5-7 seasons, Stoops took the Cats to a bowl game in 2015, the first of eight consecutive seasons that UK accomplished the feat. The 2018 and 2021 seasons were the high points, years that saw Kentucky finish with 10-3 records
and a pair of Citrus Bowl victories. Those promising seasons gave the fanbase hope that even higher goals should be set, perhaps even an appearance in the SEC Championship.
Reality has set in since the 2021 season however.
It is a lofty challenge indeed to succeed in the strongest and deepest conference in the country, and that has been proven again this season. The program had reached the point where the Cats feasted on SEC foes like South Carolina and Vanderbilt, and sometimes Mississippi State and Missouri, and UK took advantage of a weak non-conference slate to reach the desired number of wins to qualify for a bowl.
That is no longer the case. After the ugly 24-10 loss to Auburn on Saturday, Kentucky went to 0-4 in SEC home games this season. It’s become somewhat of a mystery why the team plays so poorly at home, and that’s where Stoops gets most of the blame. The team makes far too many mental and physical mistakes while playing uninspired football, especially when they fall behind.
Adding more fuel to the fire has been several comments made by Stoops in the past couple of years. Even though he protests that he has been taken out of context with some of his quotes, when listening to the head coach after the last three games – losses to Vanderbilt, Florida and Auburn – he sounds deflated and defeated.
Has he lost the fire for coaching that he once had?
Does he believe winning consistently at Kentucky is an unreachable goal?
Have his frustrations with the team’s inept offense and constantly changing coordinators reached a boiling point?
Whatever the case, the comments Stoops has been making in recent weeks has not offered much hope to the fanbase. They have just added to the frustration of the fans while they observe the disappointing performances on the field.
Many fans also see his $9 million annual salary (the ninth highest in the country) as an exorbitant amount of money for what the team is currently accomplishing. The Cats could finish with a 4-8 record, with only the Murray State game looking like a sure thing the rest of the way.
Stoops revived the moribund Kentucky football program, but if his heart isn’t in it anymore, he should step down. He has more than enough money to retire if he wants to go that route, or perhaps he would like a new coaching opportunity elsewhere. Whatever the case, the university will not be firing Stoops, not with the ridiculous $44 million buyout clause attached to his contract.
Maybe he’s ready to leave after a 12-year stint in Lexington. That’s an exceedingly long time for a head coach to be in one spot nowadays, and this looks to be the perfect time for another coaching change at UK.
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DODGERS IN DRIVER’S SEAT – As this is being hammered out on the keyboard with my less than accomplished typing skills, the Los Angeles Dodgers are sitting pretty.
LA took what it appears to be an insurmountable 3-0 lead in the World Series on Monday night with a 4-2 win over the slumping New York Yankees. The Dodgers are not only winning with the
long ball, but they also do the little things right, and their bullpen has been nearly unhittable. The so-called Bronx Bombers have their backs to the wall, and I expect they will salvage at least one game with a win tonight at Yankee Stadium.
Then again, you could be reading this on Wednesday after a sweep by the Dodgers, and a deserved MVP Award going to LA first baseman Freddie Freeman, who has overcome an ankle injury by blasting baseballs into the right field seats with regularity.
It would be a shame to see the series end so quickly. Admittedly, this ol’ baseball guy was hoping for a seven-game classic, but so far, this matchup has fallen short of expectations. The 2024 postseason has been full of drama and exciting moments, but most occurred before the World Series began.
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IS MAKING THE PLAYOFFS A FANTASY? – Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow believes there’s still hope for his team to reach the postseason, judging from his comments following the team’s latest home loss, a 37-17 rout at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday afternoon.
That’s what you expect to hear from your QB1, even though the team dropped to 3-5 with the defeat, and currently three games behind AFC North-leading Pittsburgh. Burrow did some quick arithmetic, and said the team needs 10 wins to qualify for the playoffs, before adding that means they need to win seven of their last nine games, which he called “doable.”
He may be right, but if the Bengals continue to perform the way they have up to this point of the season, the word he should have selected was “impossible.”
***** “I think you all get tired of hearing the same thing. It’s more of the same. They need to finish drives, they need to get to the end zone. They need to play better in each phase of the game.” – UK coach Mark Stoops, after falling to Auburn
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“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” — Mark Twain
