Stoops, Cats tackle last year’s failures with sense of urgency

Published 1:30 pm Tuesday, July 29, 2025

LEXINGTON, Ky. (KT) — Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops didn’t sugarcoat his team’s lack of success last season, but also doesn’t want a sequel as he readies for his 13th season at the helm.

“It’s fair to say after coming off a season where we were not very pleased, failed to meet our expectations, our own expectations, and didn’t play at the level that we wanted to, that we have to have a heightened sense of awareness, and we’ve got to just have a greater sense of urgency,” Stoops said during the team’s media day press conference Monday.

“(We had to) take a good, hard look at all the systems and processes and things that we have in place and make sure we’re doing things right — just attack those with urgency. We didn’t want to just move past it. We had to look at everything, turn over every stone, and make sure that we were doing things to the best of our ability. I feel like we’ve done that.”

The Wildcats went 4-8 last season, including a 1-7 mark against Southeastern Conference foes. A total of 31 players transferred, while quarterback Brock Vandagriff retired from the sport. To help absorb the losses on both sides of the football, Stoops signed 26 transfers and added 22 prep signees to this year’s roster.

“I love the additions,” Stoops said. “I’ve also talked about the turnover in roster. After you are coming off a season like that, I feel like it was needed in certain places, and that’s a good thing. We needed to continue to develop the young players in our program, and obviously we needed to attack the portal, like most people. Obviously, that’s a higher number than we’ve ever had here, but again, I felt like it was necessary. I feel very good about those changes.”

As for last year’s downfall, Stoops added he can’t “dwell” on the lack of success but is fully looking foward to the future.

“You’ve heard me talk for years about building a program, building the culture, building a program,” he said. “That is still true, but it’s also very true that you have to just build a team. Year-to-year, you have to build a team. That’s where we’re at.”

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Stoops also likes where his team is when it comes to revenue sharing and maintaining a competitive edge in the Southeastern Conference.

“It excites me because I feel like for the first time — well, I just feel like we’re going to be in a position to hopefully be on equal playing ground with everybody, and that hasn’t always happened,” he said. “I’m not throwing any shade anywhere. It’s true, right? I mean, I don’t have to feel funny talking about money anymore. That’s just part of it, right, part of all college sports. It’s been a tough time, but I don’t like talking about that because it feels like an excuse. It just is what it is.”

PERFECT ATTENDANCE

Stoops said the participation rate during summer workouts was at 100 percent, marking the first time in his 13-year tenure that the team’s entire roster bought into the summer workout regime.

“Not that you’re going to have somebody miss voluntarily, but there’s always going to be something pop up here and there, and this summer we had a situation where a freshman was late a couple of times, and his unit grabbed him and straightened it out and got him right back on track. It’s been a tremendous offseason,” Stoops said. “It’s been very quiet. Guys have put their heads down, have worked extremely hard.”

QUOTABLE

Stoops is scheduled to have surgery to remove a cancerous spot from his eye on Tuesday, which resulted in Stoops having a press conference four days before the team’s full media day set for Friday.

“I’ll still be around Friday, but I’ll probably have sunglasses on,” Stoops said. “I didn’t think it would be appropriate to have a media conference with my sunglasses on. I’m not Deion (Sanders). He’s the only one who can do that.”