Drew Franklin (6:00)
I mean, that is incredible. And it's very. Vince Barrow. Vince, I'm sure you're listening right now. Congrats. But six minutes to go, that's. That's insane. So ultimately, talking about the game is a waste of time. What matters is the future. And what matters is what needs to happen going forward. And those of you that have listened to this show for a long time know that I. I am much more of an incrementalist than most people are. Most people sort of ride the emotions of the moment. They're up, they're down. I'm like that during a game. But then I try to sit back and go, okay, this is probably the lawyer in me. What is the argument on either side for things? So I have been with Mark Stoops going back to the beginning of the season, thinking, okay, how is it to figure out what we should do with Mark Stoops? And you may remember I said, if he wins four games, you got to make a change, and if he wins six games, you're going to bring him back. But five wins would be the worst scenario. I was wrong about that. Five wins was not the worst scenario. Five wins with two humiliations to end the season is the worst scenario. Five wins with Indiana going undefeated, Vandy having a shot. If they win today to being 10 and 2 and losing to Louisville 41 to nothing, that is probably the worst scenario. After the game's over, Mark Stoop says, basically. Actually, let me read the quote. Cause I want to get it exactly right. Mark Stoops has asked about his future twice. He was asked in the press conference and then he was asked by Tom Leach in the press conference. He said, you think I'm going to walk away? Are you kidding me? There's zero percent chance I'll walk away. I'm going to be here. As far as I'm concerned, zero means zero, zero percent chance I walk. It's pretty definitive. Billy, right? Said 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 times. So you know his take on it? Well, this is my take. Kentucky football. And really even broader than that, Kentucky Athletics. It's time for a change. And it is time for a separation. Between UK football and Mark Stoops. And that's hard to say in some ways because I feel like we're where we were two years ago with John Calperi. So let's talk about. Because I think it's important to know what Stoops has done. Stoops has been the best coach at Kentucky of my lifetime for the majority of his career. When he came here, this program was abysmal. It had two wins. The fans were not only defeated, they had basically stopped caring. And he did something I did not think you could do during that era, which is recruited Kentucky and bring in players that could make you competitive in the SEC on a consistent basis. I didn't think you could do that here back then. I didn't think you could recruit. He made Ohio his base and he created a program that you could actually be proud of. Not only did they have two nine win seasons, they had multiple sixes and sevens. They had a. They were. But more importantly, you went into games, almost all of them, thinking you have a shot here. And think about all the NFL players he produced at one point. One season of our offensive line had more players who went to the NFL than the 25 years prior combined. That's a pretty amazing thing. And he should be given all the credit in the world for doing that. But ultimately, if you want to have a successful program, a successful business, a successful life, you cannot focus on the past. You have to focus on the future. And the reality is that going forward, I cannot see a scenario where it is going to work. If Stoops is back, I just can't. And there are a number of reasons for that. One is I don't think this regime is adapting to the modern era of college football. I don't think they know what kind of player they want to recruit. They had a history of success by recruiting guys, developing them and watching them come up. The system, that's what he was good at. Then the portal started and they combined a handful of those guys with the people they had and it worked. But now it's a different system. Now the system is lots of portal, handful of recruited guys, pay money, and so far they have not shown an ability to be good at that. They've picked the wrong quarterbacks at least two years in a row, depending on what you think of Devin Leary. Three, they have brought in players that not only have not necessarily helped, they've brought in culture issues to the program. And I think it's pretty clear, even looking at this year's team, that the vast Majority of guys that had success were who Guys that they had recruited out of high school who played as freshmen or sophomores and did better than we thought. But who have been the disappointments, the people in the portal. And there's no way you can win in 2025 without crushing the portal. And it's clear they don't know how to do it. Last year, Stoops blamed that on not having enough money. I think he had a little bit of a point. Well, this year they spent a lot of money and I think the team is a little bit better. But they only had one more win and they actually lost to Louisville by more than they did last year. And they lost to Vanderbilt by more than they did last year. And they lost to Tennessee by more than they did last year. So did it matter? I don't really think it did. But beyond the on the field product, it's clear from Mark's comments he's not going to change. Tom Leach asked him, I thought as nice as you could ask him, what do you think? Are you going to be in the seat next year and what are you going to do? And his answer was basically like, well, we're going to recruit and develop. It's the same answer that he's given for 15 years. And an answer that's just not going to work in 2025. He said, we're going to work like we always do. We're going to try to build this roster. You know, we've been in tough spots before and we're going to continue to improve. Is that an inspiring message? Is that a message that makes you think, let's go? It's not. For me, this college football is a completely different sport than it was four years ago. You can now win at places like Kentucky. I don't know if that was true 15 years ago, but you can. You can spend money, you can do it intelligently, you can coach at a high level and you can have success. And there's nothing to me that says going forward that that can happen here. I wish it did. I like Mark. I sat here and thought, I didn't even watch the second half of this game. I just kind of walked around downtown Lexington trying to think about what I was going to say because, I mean, I knew the game was over. So if it happened the second half, I didn't even see it because I knew what was going to happen. And as I walked around, the people I saw or who screamed at me out of their car were all saying the same thing. Fire. Stoops. You got to get rid of Stoops. This fan base is for the most part, I don't think it's completely. But for the most part out they just are. I'm a hockey fan now because of my Carolina Hurricanes. And every year before the hockey season starts, the Athletic does something where they rank the 32 teams by how much hope their fan base has. I always like to read it because you can kind of see, like, where are the fans on their team? I have a question for you, Billy. If they did an SEC hope rankings with the fan base next year, if we bring Stoops back, what place are we going to be in?
