A Good Day Ruined: Mark Stoops Is Reportedly Leaving Kentucky To Be Texas A&M's Next Head Coach

I, uh, I can't believe I'm writing this blog. Part of me thought Mark Stoops would be at Kentucky forever, but when he can get paid a shit ton of money when this ineivtably gets fired by Texas A&M this is a no-brainer for him. He's going to a place that expects SEC titles, national titles and 8 wins ain't gonna cut it. He's leaving a place that celebrated 8 wins, was ready to build a statue for him after a couple 10-win seasons and basically could have kept making a good amount of money. That's why I thought he'd never leave. I want to be mad. I want to get pissed, but I just can't. I mean, I know who we are and we don't have that sort of money.

But this feels weird. 

This feels weird because, you know, Stoops comes from the Jimbo coaching tree. Why go to the same tree of the guy you fired? That's the part that makes no sense to me. I'm not dumb enough to get mad about a football coach leaving Kentucky for Texas A&M. I just don't understand why they chose this Kentucky coach, this fast in the calendar. I get A&M fans are delusional and think they can hire anyone. I get they have unlimited money. But, Stoops is a damn good coach, I just don't get why you hire him after firing Jimbo. 

Here's what I'll say about Stoops. I don't know one Kentucky fan who doesn't like him. A lot of people were weirdly ready to move on from him because it felt like the program hit the ceiling with him. The 10-win year, lose to Georgia, that just felt like ...it. I get it, it's frustrating when you hit the plateau and want more. This year also sucked. It felt like a failure but ended on the obvious high note of beating Louisville, again. That's something Stoops just did. He snapped the 3-decade, yes decade, losing streak to Florida. He owned Louisville. He took over a Kentucky program that was flat out pathetic under Joker Phillips. I mean, we lost to EVERYBODY because of Joker Phillips. That's why he's going to get paid a shit ton of money when he gets fired from A&M. 

But like I said, I just don't get it. It feels weird. A&M seems to have an endless amount of money. This is who you had to get to replace Jimbo? You couldn't convince someone else? Now, Stoops did overachieve at Kentucky. He put us in spots I never thought I'd see as a Kentucky football fan. 

As for Kentucky? Call Jon Sumrall at Troy and ask him how much money. Dude played at Kentucky, coached at Kentucky, took over a bad Troy program and is 22-4 in two years. That's the move. Quite frankly that seems like the only move. Now we all wait for it to be official and what not, but if this is it, every single Kentucky fan owes Mark Stoops. He saved the program.