Last season, the pressure on Mark Stoops finally boiled over. After a miracle win in Oxford, Kentucky football didn't just lose; it unraveled. A three-game skid left the Wildcats at 3-5, the offense stagnant, and the fanbase's anger bleeding into apathy. The head coach was out of answers.
The meeting that changed nothing
That’s when the unthinkable reportedly happened. In a bombshell report by Alan Cutler, following a lifeless loss at Tennessee, Stoops walked into athletic director Mitch Barnhart’s office with a message nobody could have imagined: he wanted out. Stoops, the longest-tenured coach in program history, was ready to negotiate down his massive buyout and hand Barnhart an escape hatch from what many had called one of the most lopsided contracts in college sports.