Aug 10th – Mark Stoops, Head Football Coach, Universiy of Kentucky
LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington held its weekly meeting on Thursday, Aug. 10, at The Mane on Main, Chase Bank building on Main St. The program’s speaker was Mark Stoops, Head Coach, University of Kentucky Football.
This meeting was also be on Zoom. For the Zoom link please email, [email protected].
If you would like to have lunch, please contact [email protected] to reserve your meal.
The 2022 season marked yet another year of achievement for Coach Mark Stoops and the Kentucky football program.
When the Wildcats took on Iowa in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl in December of 2022, it extended a school-record streak of seven-consecutive bowl games, all under Stoops. Kentucky reached the postseason by posting a 7-5 record, the sixth-consecutive season (not including the Covid-shortened 2020 season) that UK has won at least seven games.
Stoops has personal milestones as well as he enters his 11th season at Kentucky, the longest term of any coach in school history
. The Wildcats’ victory at Florida in 2022 was Stoops’ 61st win, breaking the school record of sixty held by Paul “Bear” Bryant. Called “the best program builder in all of college football” a year ago by ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill, Stoops’ success has not come easily. Heading into the 2016 season his record was 12-26, but the program took off from there and the coach has engineered a 54-33 (.621) mark since.
In addition to this past season’s achievements, a partial accounting of Stoops’ exploits features:
- Four straight bowl wins – the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, 2022, the 2020 Gator Bowl, the 2019 Belk Bowl and the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, 2019 – first time in school history that UK won four straight bowls
- A school-record twenty-game win streak against non-conference competition, currently the longest active streak in the nation (2018-present)
- First win at Tennessee since 1984 (2019)
- First New Year’s Day Bowl win since 1951 (2018 season)
- First ten-win season since 1977 (2018)
- First SEC Coach of the Year since 1983 (2018)
- First final poll ranking since 1984 (2018)
- First bowl win since 2008 (2018)
- First win vs. Florida since 1986 (2018)
- First bowl appearance since 2010 (2016)
Several of Stoops’ players have also won All-America accolades, along with honors such as the Bronko Nagurski Award, Chuck Bednarik Award, Paul Hornung Award, Ronnie Lott Trophy, Ray Guy Award, Danny Wuerffel Trophy, Jason Witten Man of the Year, Pop Warner Award, Academic All-America and National Good Works Team.
Off the field, Stoops has been active in fundraising and events for the UK Children’s Hospital, and he was named Honorary Coach of the 2022 National Good Works Team.
Stoops was raised in Youngstown, Ohio. As did brothers Bob and Mike, Mark played in the secondary at the University of Iowa for Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry. He participated in four bowl games as a player. Fry hired Stoops as a graduate assistant coach at Iowa in the 1990 and ’91 seasons. The Hawkeyes won the 1990 Big Ten Title and played in the Rose Bowl, duplicating feats Stoops also achieved as a player. Stoops went on to coach four years in high school before entering the collegiate ranks.
Stoops has two sons, Will and Zack.
