Kentucky football coach Will Stein addresses media for first time
Former Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein was named as the Kentucky Wildcats football coach following the firing of Mark Stoops.
- Former Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops will reportedly join the University of Texas as a special assistant to head coach Steve Sarkisian.
- Stoops, the winningest head coach in Wildcats history, was fired after his 13th season at UK and replaced by Will Stein.
- Kentucky owes Stoops nearly $38 million, which will be paid out quarterly through April 2031.
LEXINGTON — Mark Stoops spent 13 seasons at the helm of the Kentucky football program.
Now, he’s reportedly found his newest venture.
Stoops will reportedly join Texas’ staff as special assistant to head coach Steve Sarkisian, according to a report from Horns247.com.
It marks the first time he’s worked with a team other than the Wildcats since November 2012. He was Florida State’s defensive coordinator for three seasons (2010-12).
Stoops’ salary with the Longhorns is unknown at this time. But he’s due nearly $38 million from Kentucky, which announced his firing Dec. 1. Stoops and UK agreed to spread out the remaining payments in a series of quarterly payments over the next five-plus years; the final payment is due April 1, 2031. The remaining annual payments, doled out in quarterly installments, equal $6.75 million per year.
Stoops was owed $3,937,500 within 15 days of his firing, meaning the final day Kentucky could make the payment was Dec. 16.
Because of the separation agreement with UK, Stoops’ contract with Texas isn’t subject to mitigation. (In short, his future earnings with any school or team doesn’t affect the money he’s owed by Kentucky.)
The winningest coach in program history, Stoops led the team to a record eight consecutive bowl game appearances (2016-23). The postseason streak ended last season with a 4-8 record and a 41-14 drubbing from archrival Louisville at home. Stoops’ final season at the helm, in which UK went 5-7, ended Nov. 29 with a 41-0 loss to UofL at L&N Stadium, marking Kentucky’s largest margin of defeat in series history.
“Mark Stoops gave us 13 incredible years of his life,” athletics director Mitch Barnhart told reporters after new head coach Will Stein’s introductory news conference Dec. 3. “We always wanna focus on the end. … In the game of sports, you don’t get a lot of happy endings where you get to walk off into the sunset and get to call it the way you want to call it.
“… I want to focus, for Mark, on the eight years that he gave us in that middle stretch. We went to eight straight bowl games and 10, 8, 10 (win seasons). That run we had in the middle, we hadn’t seen that ever here.”
Stein took a moment to thank Stoops during his first public appearance as head coach, which received a round of applause from fans and lettermen in attendance:
“I’d be remiss not talking about coach Stoops and what he’s meant to this program. Really thankful for his 13 years here as the head ball coach. Kentucky football and Big Blue Nation would not be where they are now without him. So we all owe him an incredible amount of debt for his efforts and success here.”
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
