The Kentucky Wildcats are among the many elite faculty basketball applications. For a short interval across the flip of this decade, it appeared like the college simply could be a soccer powerhouse, too. From 2018 to 2021, Mark Stoops led the Wildcats to 4 straight bowl wins, together with two seasons of a minimum of ten victories and two finishes within the prime 15 of the Coaches Ballot.
However then, issues took a flip. Kentucky eked out a pair of 7-6 seasons in 2022 and 2023 earlier than sputtering to a mixed 9-15 document in 2024 and 2025. These two years included a 3-13 mark in SEC play. After a 41-0 drubbing towards the cross-state rival Louisville Cardinals, Kentucky’s administration had seen sufficient and fired Stoops.
The college must pay Stoops fairly a bit for the glory of going away. As a part of his contract, Stoops will obtain a buyout value 75% of his remaining wage. With a large deal that ran by way of 2031, Stoops will make about $37.7 million.
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That is one of many wealthiest buyouts in faculty soccer historical past. Solely Jimbo Fisher ($76 million) and Brian Kelly ($54 million) have acquired bigger quantities. James Franklin additionally had a $49 million buyout from Penn State, although that quantity was lowered significantly after Franklin accepted a head teaching job at Virginia Tech.
Stoops completed his 13-year stint at Kentucky with a document of 82-80 and a convention mark of 38-68. The ten wins from the 2021 season had been vacated after the NCAA discovered Kentucky had provided impermissible advantages to 11 gamers on the crew. Even in case you subtract these ten wins, the official 72-80 document makes Stoops the winningest coach in Kentucky historical past.
The Wildcats reached eight consecutive bowl video games from 2016 by way of 2023. But as identify, picture, and likeness offers and fixed participant transfers turned extra commonplace over the previous couple of seasons, Kentucky could not preserve the identical degree of success on the sector.
Now, the college is on the hunt for its subsequent coach. And it is going to owe its former one a ton of cash.
