Revisiting the plan Mark Stoops had for Kentucky football and how he has made it work

LEXINGTON, Ky. — When Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart introduced new football coach Mark Stoops on Dec. 2, 2012, Barnhart told fans, “You deserve a football program that competes at a championship level, and that’s what we hired this guy to do.” Then Stoops leaned into the microphone and declared: “I’m highly motivated to build this program to national prominence.” Members of the audience could be excused for rolling their eyes. “I’m not going to lie, it takes great perseverance because there are some moments that it hits you right between the eyes how bad you are, how bad we were, as a program,” Stoops said. “There may come a time when I can’t give it 100 percent every day, all day, which is what it takes,” Stoops said. It’s never an excuse for failures in your personal life, but it’s definitely challenging, and there are things that, in that way, I could’ve been better at.” Stoops also noted that his brother, Bob, abruptly retired as Oklahoma’s coach in 2017 “on his own terms, when he wanted to, when he felt like he gave it everything he could.” Lest Kentucky fans begin to panic, Mark Stoops made it clear he’s not nearing that point because the plan is not complete.