Mark Stoops is motivated as the longest-tenured coach in the Southeastern Conference prepares for his 13th season at Kentucky.
He’s also “grateful” to be back with the Wildcats coming off a rare 4-8 season, including a 1-7 mark against league foes. He also had ankle replacement surgery, which put a strain on him personally and professionally.
“Last year was a bear on me physically, (and) I got that fixed,” Stoops said during an appearance at the SEC Media Days in Atlanta on Thursday. “I feel great. That pain is gone when I'm on the field. I'm very grateful and looking forward to this 13th year.”
To learn from last year’s painful experience, Stoops evaluated the program from top to bottom to help prepare for the future.
“There are many of us who had a year off here and there,” he said. “When you do that and have a bad year like that, I had to take a good step back, analyze each and every thing in our program, in our staff and our players. There's a lot of work to be done.”
Stoops lost 31 players to the transfer portal, including receivers Barion Brown and Dane Key. Stoops also lost his longtime tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator, Vince Marrow, to Louisville last month. Despite the turnover, Stoops isn’t rattled but the changes, which include 50 new players, 26 of which were signed through the transfer portal.
“It's business as usual for us — business as usual for myself,” Stoops said. “… I’m ready to just move forward.”
The Kentucky coach referred to last year’s struggles as ”a fourth-and-one mentality.”
“That moment in a fourth-and-one situation demands urgency, unity and execution,” he said. “We needed to have a strong off-season.”
The players, including tight end Josh Kattus, said last year didn’t “go as planned” and was a “learning experience.”
We've got to learn from what kind of went wrong last year.
“I think there was a lot of good to build off,” he said. “That's what's great about football and the transfer portal. We brought in a bunch of new guys who are just looking to go 1-0 when it comes to Week 1.
"That's what we're focused on. We're focused on getting better. We're focused on going into this fall camp and competing. And we're trying to move past last year on to this year.”
Jordan Lovett agreed and likes the makeup of this year’s squad.
“We’re a lot more dialed in, especially as a team, especially with all the transfers we got,” he said. “We have to be, chemistry has to be on 10, and everybody has to be dialed in a lot more than we did last year to overcome this slump that happened last year.”
Although adjustments and changes have been made by Stoops and his staff, the overall approach hasn’t changed.
“We will continue to anchor with the core values of our program — that's attitude, toughness, discipline and pride. We need to do that with the consistency that's necessary to make sure that you're going to get the growth that's needed.”
