KSR - 2025-03-11- KSR - Hour 1

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Mark Stoops joins the show to talk Kentucky Football.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Comedy Off Broadway in Lexington welcomes Jay Durana, March 6 through the 8th, then catch club favorite nephew Tommy, March 13th through the 16th, and don't miss Michael Pallasack, March 21st and 22nd.

Comedy Off Broadway opened in downtown Lexington in 1987, and they're still bringing the best in stand-up comedy to the area 38 years later. Four tickets, call 859, 271 joke, or visit Comedy OffBroadway.com. Comedy off. Welcome, everyone, Kentucky Sports Radio Tuesday, March the 11th. I'm Matt Jones here in studio in Lexington. You can give Sean the Clark's Pump and Shop phone line.

We will close the phones for right now, but we will open them later. 859-2802287. A Vision Auto Glass Text Machine is 772-7545254 in this edition. Sponsored by the T.J. Smith Law Office, if you call T.J., he'll make them pay. We are happy to have in studio. We rarely, Ryan, start things off with an interview. I can't, I can't think of how many shows that's ever happened ever. Can you? No, because you like to talk. So we let you talk.

We usually like to talk for a minute. But it's pro day for UK football. So Mark Stoops was nice enough before March Madness gets rolling to join us in here. Right off the top, Mark. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Matt. Good to be in studio. good to come talk with you guys. I know this is a little late for us. Usually we get together. Yeah, we usually do it early. But you had surgery.

Is that right? I did have surgery. Yeah, I had to have ankle surgery. And I'm doing much better. It feels much better. However, today I woke up and it's a little sore, but hey, I'll work through it. So you had to have surgery, what, right after the season, wasn't it? I did.

Yeah. You were kind of limping around a little bit there? I was. I definitely was. It's just wearing tear on the ankle. There wasn't any one injury. You know, I had to have knee replacement surgery. You're getting a while.

Man, I tell you. Yeah. Those, it adds up after. You and I, we were all just talking about my son and whether he's going to play college ball and he's not. And I'm totally okay with that. You know, I mean, I'm not the biggest guy. And so the body takes its wear and tear. And ankle was next.

So I had to have ankle replacement surgery. That does not happen too often. I don't think I've ever heard of that. Have you ever heard that? No, I've never heard that before. So ankle replacement. Well, I hope you're doing well. Yeah, I'm doing better. Thank you for taking the time.

Spring practice, what started yesterday? It did. And how's it going? You liken the group? I definitely do. I think, you know, let's be honest, you've heard me talk many times. I'm never going to come on here and think, oh, the sky's falling. But I love the group.

You know, you and I'll get into the weeds here. We'll talk about many things. Obviously, I was not very happy with the way the year was. who was nobody that cares about the cats so things didn't go well so you you had to take a deep dive a deep look at everything in the program again and strip it all down and and take a good hard look at the things you know that we've done well over the years you know where did we fall short last year why how do we get better how do we coach better you know and put our guys in position to be successful. You know, how do we get into the leadership factors and bring that out of the team

and, you know, and grow in that area? And then how do you build the roster? And so I love the roster for this year. Let's put that. Well, let's talk. I want to kind of do this in two parts. Maybe start with last year, kind of put it to bed and then talk about what's what's upcoming. Let's start, you know, let's start with last year. It was obviously a year that was disappointing for a lot of fans. I'm sure it was disappointing for you as well. When you look back on that year last year and you say to ourselves, okay, it did not go how we wanted to go. Why do you think that happened? Why do you think it was, I think Mitch Barnhart said, a one-year blip?

But if that is what it is, why do you think it happened? Well, I think there's many reasons, you know, that it happened. And, you know, I think that's a very broad-based question right there. I mean, obviously, there's many factors that go into it. Clearly, you know, and I'm not just saying this. I know people get tired of it. After being here 12 years, 13 years talking to you, you know, it falls on my shoulders and all that. People are like, blah, blah, blah.

I understand. But it truly is. You know, you have to look at why that happened. I mean, it starts with myself and making sure the leadership was what we needed it to be, you know, and, you know, with myself. with our staff, with strength and conditioning, with nutrition, you know, X's and O's, you know, everything, you know, that we do in the organization and making sure we're all on the same page. We're, you know, pushing our players to the best of their abilities. How do you think that might have fallen short last year?

Well, I just think it starts with us, right? It starts with us. And so we, you know, like one of the things we did when we got back together as a staff and brought everybody in the room, we got offsite and put us in a big, you know, circular table. you know, went at it as far as having a meetings for, for six, eight hours, you know, however long it takes just to, you know, hear from every department and the things, again, where we've done well, where we fell short, why. And there's a lot of things that we could have done better. And, you know, we have to look at those things. Everything from, again,

from X's and O's, you know, leadership, accountability, you know, strength and conditions, You know, nutrition, you know, anything. And, you know, you've heard this saying, you know, many years. If you do the little things, the big things aren't so big, right? And last year, the little things were big. Well, I think for fans, there would be some value in specifics. I mean, I think a lot of fans, they hear you say that and say take responsibility. But give us some examples of like when you got in that room with eight hours and you said,

okay, this needs to be better than that. Like, what are some examples of that? Well, I think, you know, again, hear me when I say this, because if I say any one thing in particular, one thing I did learn last year when you lose and everybody, you know, and it's bad, whatever I say gets absolutely ripped apart, right? I have to be a little bit broad stroke there. You can understand that.

I can, but I also think fans want to hear, like our fans, SEC fans in general, they know football. And they want to hear, I do think they want to hear more than a broad stroke of what could have been better. Let's just take discipline. Did you feel like the discipline was where it needed? I mean, no, how can I say it was? Okay. And but I don't need that to be, you can understand my point of view saying, Mark Stubb said discipline was the absolute problem.

That was one of many problems, right? And when I say discipline, there's different layers of that, right? It's not like our team went rogue. And, you know, that's never going to happen under my watch. You know, was it as dialed in as we needed to be? Clearly not. You know, clearly not. And I understand that.

I take responsibility for that. That doesn't mean everything was all. I loved our team. Was it where we wanted to be? No. No, absolutely not. We didn't coach good enough. We didn't play good enough.

We weren't disciplined enough. You know, we weren't physical enough. lot of things. And so that is part of it. That, that I have to look at. And so, again, if you let, you know, a little thing, you know what I mean, slip by or if things go unchecked, then, then it can become a big thing. Do you think some of that happened? Do you think some of that happened? Do you think there was some, there were some, there was some chatter that would come out, uh, from the, from the, you know, just people around the program that said, you know, maybe there's not been as much attention to be on time, do your reps, do all these things, and that maybe some things

got, were let to slip. Is that fair or no? I think that's fair. I have to take that kind of criticism. You know, and when things unravel like they did and you have a season like, like you did, you have to be, accept all that. And again, do I think it was completely rogue and things were no, that's never going to happen. That's never going to happen under my teams. Was it as dialed in or as tidy as it needed to be? Clearly not. The results weren't there. And little things became big things. And so, you know, that, you know, that can't happen. There was obviously struggles with the, let's just start with offense, on the offensive line. Some of that may have been like personnel. Were there other, I mean, when did you realize you had an offensive line

problem? It clearly wasn't what it has been a lot of the time you were at you. Yeah, I think it was game too. You know what we go in there and have the struggles that we had. I think, you know, we didn't anticipate that. And, you know, I think, you know, Coach Bush, you know, adjusted after that, you know what mean, to some extent, you know what I mean? Let's be honest. I mean, if you get behind, if you're getting an unpredictable pass, you've heard me talk

about this a lot. Certainly, if it's not a strength and you're not. holding up. You know, and so, you know, I think, you know, we went into the season, you know, trying to get the depth that we needed, the continuity that I haven't had on the offensive side. And with the offensive line and with the offense coordinator, clearly caught up to us, you know, at a point.

And, again, that's not fun. That's not good to go through. And some of that was beyond. I mean, I know you didn't think you'd have that turnover at, at offensive coordinator, you went and you got basically a completely new offensive line. And that may be something that just happens a lot in the portal era. Do you think this group will meld and has a talent level maybe that last year's group didn't? I mean, do you feel better about that position?

Because it felt like we were a number of steps back last year. Fair. You know, agree. I think we're better and definitely better. One thing that was a point of emphasis, we had to keep our good players that, you know, our good young guys in place. Malachi, Abba. You know, we had to keep the Jagger, you know, and he's not young. But the guys we had inside Jalen Farmer, you know, we had to keep the nucleus of the good players we had, keep them here.

And then add to it. And in particular tackle, you know, we had to get better at tackle. And we certainly did that. We certainly addressed that issue. And we had to. You guys went a different way, at least from an outsider's perspective in the portal, whereas I think a lot of the times in the past you had gone and gotten guys in big programs, maybe didn't play as much as they like, etc.

It felt like you went and got maybe mid-level program, but guys who had performed started a lot of games. Was that a change in philosophy at all? You know, it was, I think, finding the right guys to come in and, you know, fit in our culture, fit and play for us, that, that, that, you know, had the physical attributes that we clearly have to have, but also, you know, socially, the way they fit in, the way they adapt to our program was certainly important. I think I don't know how much, you know, you've really dove into the weeds, and I really don't want to get into

too much. But, I mean, with the changing landscape, we've all talked about that for three years. It is what it is. But this last recruiting cycle for football, it'll go through that one more recruiting cycle for basketball from what my understanding is. You know, come July 1, I think they're trying to put some guardrails around this thing. And so this last recruiting cycle, you know, you had to make a move or, you know, you were going to get completely left. Do you feel like Kentucky going forward? I mean, when I hear fans, I asked fans yesterday, I was like, all right, what questions do you want me to ask Mark Stoops? And the one that came up the most was, you know, we're entering a new air.

say this all the time. Like, this is a completely new era of college sports. You know, coaching the exes and O's may still be the same, but the off the field stuff's completely different. Do you feel like UK and Mark Stoop specifically are, do you feel like you're ready? Do you enjoy, I mean, whether you enjoy it or not, are you ready for this new era? Is Kentucky ready for this new era? Because it's a different sport in a lot of ways. Absolutely. I think the last three seasons have. been absolutely unequivocally the most challenging. You know, at this point, you know, come July 1, we're supposed to have some guardrails

around this thing. True, authentic name image and likeness. If a young man can earn money, you know, with his name, image and likeness, by all means, he should be able to do that and go do that. the era of just truly donors pouring $20, 30 million into rosters and just paying for play, that's been the last three years. That's gone. Okay, so again, this has to happen.

Now, the judge has to rule on it in April. That happens in April. Yeah. You know, that has to happen. And, you know, we have to actually get this third party entity that can, you know, have some teeth and monitor, you know, whether this is a true authentic NIL deal or not. Otherwise, it's just who's going to pour the most money into it.

But in that system, do you feel like Kentucky can be competitive? Are you eager? I guess it's a different way to put it. Are you eager to play in this system? Because I kind of wonder, like, if you're not, like, if coaches aren't, is it going to work for them? Like, are you ready to sort of go to war with these guys on this? 100%. Okay.

You know, we went to battle this year. I do love the team that I put together. You know, we will see. We went through one spring practice. I love, and I'm not just saying this, this is not lip service. I love the way they've attacked the offseason. You know, coming in and attacking the weight room, having the accountability, having the discipline, having the work ethic, you know, attacking the day, truly, you know what I mean, watching all their weights, making sure everything's, you know, buttoned up, so to speak. You know, I feel like it's been a great winner.

Guys have attacked it. You know, we went into our fourth quarter drills, which we, you know, basically challenge them physically and mentally and do some drills with them in early in the morning. They did that, you know, they attacked that. You know, we started spring ball. We're off to the right start. I hear you, you know, I agree with you. You know, there's no defense on some of the things, you know, you know, specifically or broad strokes, however you want to say it, definitely some things needed to be readdressed. And I think, you know, we are obviously.

off to the right start. I think we attack this portal. I think if you go back, if you look at it in a segment, we all hope as coaches, the most challenging time in our history has been the last three years. We hope we can move forward and attack it. And yeah, we have the Revs share. You know, if that, if that's, then we'll be on an equal playing field with everybody if it works that way. We're going to take a break. Be right back. Got more questions for Mark Stoops. We're also going to get ready. The SEC turn. tournament is coming. This is Kentucky Sports Radio. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind.

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Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. It is Kentucky Sports Radio. 859-28027 on the text machine. Let me give some quick hitters to you that people want to ask. One person writes, I want to ask Mark, do we have a general manager?

You hear people getting hired as general manager for the football team. Is there an individual with that role at Kentucky? Yeah, we don't, it's none of the title, but it's Eddie Grant. So Eddie Grant is kind of our general manager. Eddie works with me, works with the budget. that, you know, he wears many hats. He helps what he's really worked hard at the last three years is raising the money that we've needed to pay some of these players.

So the extent that, so we don't have that as a title, but for practical purposes, that's him. Okay, I don't know that people have known that. I had heard that. So when you're trying, I assume that's an all-year job of watching players trying to figure out where you're going to go. Who makes the kind of final decision of, This is because I know you don't have time to watch all these. Who, who we're going to take that guy instead of this guy?

So, you know, Eddie will, Eddie is the general manager as far as helping me, you know, prepare the budget, raise money, you know, and then, you know, decide where we're going to allocate those funds. And then we have a personnel department as well where the guys in there, we have many people in there, you know, crew of people and they're watching players all year long. So they're getting, they watch high school and college. Okay. So there are people whose job is.

to look at who's out there on the scene. Exactly. And then it's like, let's say, okay, we need to tackle. So it's the final choice of there's this kid from Northern Illinois, and then there's this kid from Colorado State. We're going to take the Northern Illinois kid. Is that you? Who makes that call?

We make that call as a group. I mean, obviously, if it's an offensive lineman, Eric Wilford, you know, Edgarine, offensive coordinator, myself, I will say this, you know, with the free agent market in football this last cycle, end the cycle before. It was kind of out of control. You know what I mean? What the value was and what people were going.

It's like free agency in football right now. I mean, you know, when you have 85 free agents on a football team, things can get out of hand in a hurry. So let me ask you about another person here writes. Has Mark ever considered having a clock management person? I will say for my, and you know I'm a big fan of years, My one criticism over the years of your coaching has been the clot management. Sometimes I feel like there's just somebody just to go, hey, if we call a timeout here,

it'll be 35, just literally math. Do you all, do you have someone in your ear giving you that information during the game? 100%. Yeah, I have absolutely unequivocally, you know, go to the analytics on that, on when to call a timeout, when not to and all those things. And when to go. So how does that work on game day? Is there someone going, okay, Mark, here?

Yeah, yeah. I'm far ahead of it. You know, when we're going into the series, you know, whether we're going on offense or defense, he'll be right in my ear saying, do not take one until the four-minute mark. Okay. You know, and so at that point, I clearly, I go directly by analytics. What about like decisions on punt, no punt? I used, when you were here early, it always felt like Mark Stoops was going to punt.

Sometimes I would be, go, gosh, I wish they would go for it. Mark Stubbs is going to punt. In the last couple years, it seemed like that's been more, I think you've made decisions. Sometimes I've heard you after games go, I wish I hadn't done that. Like, how do you decide in a do we go for it or not situation? I do listen to the analytics first. Okay. And I will look at those.

I think you have to look at who you are a little bit too. What do you think you can do? You know, who you're playing? What are their strengths? What are your strengths? You know, where is that? I accept that. There's going to be that criticism.

You know, I don't take offense to that. You know what I mean? Do you go forward on fourth or not? You know what I mean? Do you consider yourself aggressive, conservative? Like, how do you consider yourself as a coach? I play things usually by the book, you know, for the most part. I think the big one last year was the Georgia game.

And, you know, and that's, it's really fair, you know, criticism. I could also sit here and say we were in that game because of field. Well, we were in that. We were in that game because of defense and field position. Do you, so fans will say to me, fans will say to me, how does this, and what's your answer to this? How does the same team that played Georgia to the final play wins at Old Miss, plays Texas really well a little bit on the road for a good part of that game, then have the results

against Vandy, the kind of way it fell apart against Louisville. Like, how did you just as a coach, how did you explain beating old miss on the road and then losing to Auburn at home? I mean, like, how do you explain yourself for that? Well, Auburn at home, I mean. But just in general. I mean, there was wildly inconsistent results. Fair. Fair criticism.

I think, you know, the, you go play, I've said this for years. I think people sometimes latch on to it. Sometimes you don't. When you play people in this league, you see weird stuff all the time. It is extremely taxing on our players mentally and physically. You know, where you hit something, where you're playing, where you're at right there, what your headspace is, what you're like physically, factors into it. I can't always see that coming.

You try to head things off. You try to make sure you're ahead of things. You know, you look at Vandy, and they had a really good year. They brought in a quarterback that had a great spark. They brought in some players that were used to that system. They played, you know, extremely hard. You know, we made, that is a game that we brought up earlier, the, you know, discipline and the problems. I mean, I had remarkable players for me making incredible mistakes early in that game.

And, you know, that's hard, you know, that's hard. There's no excuse for it. You know what I mean? We should have scored the first three times we had the ball. And, you know, that we didn't do it. It just didn't happen. You know, and then the Louisville game, you know, I think by that time, I don't know.

It's, again, it's indefensible. We've had a really good run. Yeah. But our players understand the importance of it. We embrace it. We embrace that challenge. You know, we were, you know, hang it. We didn't play very good.

30 seconds real quick. Do you want that to game to keep going if you go to a nine-game SEC scale? Yeah, I do. You want to keep playing. I do. I do. I do. I like that.

Me too. Because I want to keep playing. That's the right answer. I understand why they may not do it, but I want them to do it. All right, we'll take a break. Be right back here with Mark Stubbs, KSR. Welcome back, Tughey Sports Radio. Let's talk for a second about this year with Mark Stoops.

All right, so we, I was saying I'm not sure there'll be a Kentucky football team that we like know less about as fans. So tell me about the quarterback position. You're going to have Zach Kalsata, you got Cutter. How do you expect that to go? Do you go into spring practice saying I think this will be our guy? And if so, who would it be? No, I think you, you know, obviously it's an open competition.

Getting back to, you know, what we opened with. And, you know, you have to, when you go through a year like that, you have to challenge every player and say, you're coming in here and you're going to earn your position, right? No entitlement whatsoever. Everything's going to be earned. Nothing's given. And we have to get back to that.

That's the way it's always been. Again, we address some of the issues that I take full responsibility for. but that can't be like that going forward. Nobody's going to be given anything. They better go win the job. And so. Do you think in the process of getting players you had to promise stuff before that you just decide you're not going to do that anymore?

Well, I don't think, you know, yes, you know, in a way they feel like there's an open door, which there is. Any time I've told a player is that you have a great opportunity. Okay. And so if you go to the quarterback position, you have Cutter coming back who we have great faith in. But, you know, let's be honest, that was the only one on campus. Bill Arlen decided to come back.

We love that just, you know, to have that depth and experience and a guy like that. But there wasn't much on campus, right? We were bringing in two freshmen. So you bring in Zach Alzada. He's a six-year guy. So I love that experience of that. Here's a guy that's played a lot of football. You go to the portal.

If you go back a little bit of history, we took a shot on Will Levis home run, right? Yeah. You know, but didn't have much experience. You know, last year with Brock. You know, we brought Brock in, didn't have that much experience. Maybe, you know, he could have played better, but maybe I could have done a better job. I take my responsibility. I never put that on Brock, right?

We talked about old line issues. We talked about coaching. You know what I mean? That's all of us. But it could have been better. You know, with Zach, you see a guy that's played a ton of football. So I like that part of it. But like in spring, are they both taking like QB1 reps?

Yeah, definitely. And I'll be honest, I made this, you know, with, with, uh, what little media appearances I've made so far talking about spring and I will throughout the spring. I really want to stay away from it. I don't mind talking about it a little bit and all that because I know you have a, you know, a lot of listeners that care, but right now I want to make everybody earn it. I want to talk about, like, the position, the quarterback position, you know what I mean? They need to be a great leader.

I love the armed talent of both of those guys. I mean, they could rip it. Both of them could throw the heck out of the football. Both of them are passionate about it. Both of them have leadership skills. You know, and Bo Allen gives me a great third, you know, because he came back, you know, to me, his arm is much fresh, you know, strong and fresh again. You know, I think Bo's the type of guy when he first got here during, during COVID. I think the guy works so hard.

You know what I mean? He, you know, set himself back a little bit, but he's back to full strength in a guy that I believe in. And so I just feel like as a room and then the two freshmen guys that will bring along. But I think as a room, I love it. I love the top two guys. Wide receiver, you had two of the more explosive players we've seen here in a long time in Barryonne and Dane. They ended up leaving.

So do you feel good about where you are at that position? I mean, it's hard to replace guys like that, but what's the game plan? Well, you know, I think once again, you know, would bring Jemore Maclin back because he played so well late in the season last year. And again, I think that's an area where if there's some criticism, it's like, you know, you had those two guys outside, you kept on waiting, you know what I mean, you know, for them to do things that they did. Certainly, Dane was, you know, very steady and reliable for us. And then, you know, but then J. Mack, we played inside. And then when we started playing him outside, we realized he's a better outside guy. You know, you know, he made some really tough contested catches late in that

season. And so I think, you know, once again, like I talked about with the, the offensive linemen that we needed to bring back, it started with J. Mack, too, because he played so good late. again, he has a ton of experience. So bringing him back, you got, you know, you got Fred back. We brought in J.J. Hester, you know, from Oklahoma that has some really good upside. That's a tall guy that could really run that needs to, you know, needs to produce for us. You know, you bring in stiletto that's played a lot of football, especially when healthy from Clemson. You know, Kendrick Law that gives us a strength in a build of a receiver that we had, that I haven't had.

you know, and, you know, a ball and hand guy that's extremely strong and explosive. You know, so, you know, I like what we've added there. David Washington was a guy late last year that we felt like, you know, was going to be a good football player. You, in terms of a coaching staff, you know, the fans tend to say they see a position struggle and then they put it on that position coach. There's been a lot of talk about, as we said, the offensive line, but also other positions. How did you, you kind of kept a lot of your staff together. How do you feel like, I mean, do you understand fans' criticisms about that? Or do you think it's not really fair to say the offensive line coach?

I don't, you know, myself, I don't mean to be oblivious to this because I do talk to you. I talk to media. Like, I understand the gist of it and my head's not in the sand. I don't listen to all that. I can't, right? You know what I mean? I can't, can't. But I will say this.

There's, you know, I understand the frustration. Heck, I was frustrated when Eric left the first time, you know, and he and I go back. I could tell you this. There's not a coach that I've ever had that I take more calls for. You know, the guy could go anywhere he wants at any time. And he knows the last time, and he decided to go work with Nick. And, you know, and I understand that. And it hurt us, though.

You know what I mean, the continuity. He knows that. When he came back, we had those discussions and, you know, both professionally and personally, you know, about the responsibility and what we need and the consistency and continuity that I need. He understood that. He's taken those bullets. He's come back. He just recruited as good as anybody have ever had.

Any, any. You all did get a ton of guys. But I guess what I'm saying. Now listen to me on this, in his defense, and I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'll defend any of my guys if I believe in it. You know, but he's a guy that's on the treadmill at 536 a.m. every day, texting 25 recruits all day, every day, working his butt off and can literally, I don't need to start naming names, but like the biggest of the big in our profession, all called to hire him this offseason. You know, every one of them. So you feel confident in that? And his ability, yes.

And his recruiting and his coaching and all of it. And he's a tireless worker. He's relentless. He's tough as nails. Believe me, yes, the inconsistency, the continuity has hurt us. Yes, he was a part of that. But that, you know, again, that's the side of it. We accept it.

We know it. Now it's about what are we going to do moving forward, right? When you look at your offense and defense, just philosophy big picture, do you, is there anything you want to change from what you had last year? I remember after Liam left, you said, okay, we want to try to run the ball more, get back to some of that. And I think you did some of that last year. Do you see anything going into this year where you're like, okay,

I want to see us move in this direction from a philosophy standpoint? I think just getting better at all things we did, right? Last year, again, getting back to some of the criticism, when, you know, we got into it a little bit, you know, it's hard to get in everything as much as we need to. But when we talked about old line issues early, you know, in the season, we identified that. And it's kind of like packaged some things to what you can do, right? We have to try to win games. I think we've done a decent job over the years with that, right? Not always perfect.

I'm not trying to pat myself. But it's like adapt to what you can do. And that goes into the factoring of what, whether you go for it, fourth and 10 or not and who you're playing. Can you get it? Yeah. You know what I mean? And so, but, you know, I think offensively, defensively special teams continue to build

on the good things we're doing. And then, yeah, you know, situational football last year, again, not very good at times. And let's look at critical moments, some short-yardage scenarios that really hurt us. You know, that I have to take response. But that is going to be addressed in the spring. And there were a lot of like third and fourth and one. Most definitely. Let me finish with this because I think this is probably the $64,000 question.

There are, when I talk to average UK fans, here's exactly what they say to me, most of them about Mark Stubbs. He has been amazing in what he's done here. He did stuff I never thought we could do at Kentucky, right? Like he he recruited at a level that we didn't think. He and Vince brought in players that we didn't think. You know, we had these 10 win seasons. I didn't know if we'd ever do that. All these bowl games in a row, et cetera.

And then they'll say, so he's done a great job, period. Next sentence. I am worried, though, about the future. How do I know he's going to be ready for this next era? How do I know this next year is going to be better than the last couple? If you were to hear that and you were to try to give a message to the fan base as why they should still be excited and pumped up for the future of UK football, what would you say? Well, I would say, number one, I hear them and I accept, you know, the criticisms. 100%. I'm not, you know, so hardheaded where, you know, I'm going to, I'm not going to try to embrace any challenge, any obstacle to get better.

You know, you could take this or leave it, Matt. And, you know, I've never been, you know, as motivated as I am right now. No, you know, if you know anything about me, I do not like an ass kicking. And, you know, and we didn't play to our best last year. And, you know, I could guarantee you, since that season was over, when we lost on Saturday against Louisville, our butts were in that office on Sunday and have not stopped since. We're going to attack this thing. We have to put the pieces together.

We have to strategically, you know, get better and put them in a position to be successful. But it came with building a roster. That was the first thing I had to do. We've done that. Then it comes with absolutely demanding excellence from them and leaning on them 24-7 in a way. You know what I mean? In a very positive manner. But, you know, in keeping them accountable.

and making sure, you know, they have the leadership qualities that it takes to be successful, to stay united through, you know, challenges because there's going to be obstacles. When you play in our league, you're going to hit adversity, and how do you handle that? And do you have the roster? Do you have the depth? Do you have, you know, the preparation that it takes? We're leaving no stone unturned. We're working our tail off.

I love this place. I've been here 12 years, going on 13, and I promise you. you know, I'll be honest with you. I've never, you know, I'm emotional right now talking about because my house wants to get back to the office, get to work, and make this team better. That's what I could guarantee you. And I could guarantee you that they're going to play with the same level of competitiveness that we always have, the same chip on our shoulder, the same discipline.

We're not going to be perfect. But we're going to play hard. And, you know, we're going to do things right. Mark, thank you very much. I'll let you get back to your office to go do that. And good luck with Pro Day today. and hope it goes well. Thank you very much for your time.

Thanks for having. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. Kentucky Sports Radio. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened.

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It is cornbread hemp. All right, so guys, Mark was here. I thought he finished very strong with his sort of take there at the end. What did you think of, what did you think of Mark? Just as a fan listening to him, I heard some things I needed to hear. You know, he took, didn't make excuses. You know, he took responsibility for a lot of things that happened last year. And if you're a media person in this town and you cover UK football, there was some golden nuggets in what he said there in 45 minutes.

I mean, there really was. Mr. Media guy. What are the golden nuggets, Mr. Scoop? I'm a respected member of the media of the football union. Yeah. What are the golden nuggets? Well, that's the first time I think publicly he's talked about the problems with culture and the problem with the offensive line. You know, I think that was some... He did acknowledge the culture.

Yes, he did. Which, he did. I think it's important. I think it is. Because everybody around the program knew that and like it felt like nobody was saying it. He did. I thought that was good, Drew. By the way, nice to have you here.

This is the first time you spoke, I think. Yeah, hello, everyone. Is my mic on? Yes. Good to see everybody. I got to admit, you know, most of the interview was all right, you know, didn't fire me up. At the end, he got me fired up a little bit when he said, because a lot of people

have questioned his motivation when he said, I'm emotional to get back to the office to fix this right now. I hate an ass kicking. I thought that was a great answer. I mean, we all know that he knows it didn't go well, but I think there's been a lot of people wondering how much gas is left in that tank. And I can tell you, just sitting across the table, that is a guy that is pretty motivated or at least seem that way to go fix everything that went wrong.

Is that the first time, am I right, that, like, it's been acknowledge that Eddie Grand was the GM? First, I've heard that. I knew that that's what it was, but I don't know that they've ever said that, even though he said it wasn't the title. Yeah, not the title, but he's acting as the team general manager. Yeah. Which in this day and age, you've got to have somebody like that. Oh, you definitely have to have somebody like that. Yeah. I mean,

you, and I think Eddie's been doing it a lot on the fundraising side, but the picking players side I think is also a big part of that too. Yeah, he's mentioned how helpful that he's been in the past in press conferences. And Eddie does do a lot of fundraising, but I think that's the most open he's been about actual roster management, and Eddie's rolling that. But I know Eddie leading the charge on getting the money for NIL. Shannon, you're harder to convince on everything. What did you think of it?

I think Stoops is always at his best when he's on this show. He's just so open and honest. He took responsibility. He sounded like he had energy. I think his best segment was the last one, so he ended on a high note. And I think maybe the most important thing I heard is that he would be interested in keeping the local game on the schedule for next season. Yeah, that was interesting. I mean, that was an interesting comment. Like,

I don't know that anyone else at UK has said that, but they need to be. Another golden nugget for the local media there was. Is that one of your golden nuggets? There was. There were a golden nuggets. You like the golden nuggets? He was just dropping them for you guys,

making your job easy today. Yeah. You know, overall, listen, I think it's very difficult whenever you've had success to, all of a sudden have to deal with failure and what you say. And I've always thought of Mark as like a guy who, you know, I don't think he's stubborn in

the way that I thought Cal was stubborn, but he's also like he wants to defend himself. And I think sometimes it's hard for those people to just go, you know what? It didn't work, right? And I feel like he's getting closer to that. That's not easy. It's not easy to do something that failed. when you're a successful person and just say this failed. I've talked about, like when I worked at CBS,

it just kind of failed. Like the two people I worked with, it was me, Matt Norlander and Jeff Borzello. We were all hired at the same time. Those two guys are two of the National College Basketball writers, and I'm not. It just didn't work. That just did not work for me.

Sometimes that's hard to just go, you know what? I just failed. and I think Drew he's getting closer to that because I just don't know how you can look at last year's anything except it didn't work but in order to make it better I think you have to acknowledge the failure Yeah he did that as best he could

He didn't get too specific on some things I could have wanted to hear more But really just You got to give the man credit for sitting here for 50 minutes People didn't hear this but you said how long do we have you He said as long as you need me and as many questions as you have Because they have pro day at 11 He's going to be late for that

I know we get accused the defendant's stoop's a little bit Not many coaches would have just done what he just did. And he was here by himself. Okay, that's another thing. Like a lot, most of the time, if coaches come, there's going to be media people sitting here and they're going to look at you. Like, don't ask that. He came here by himself, right?

He, you know, I do give him credit for that. Look, I don't know him well. Like, I talked to him earlier today and it was the first time I'd talk to him in, you know, since the season ended. But I also think. like he seems like a guy who when the when the criticism comes it does hurt him and he really wants to show people he can he can fix it and you know this year will ultimately decide the tail right the results are going to be what they are and we'll see what happened yeah you're right whether you're a coach or whatever you're doing in life if you have great success and all sudden there is a blip if you're a good leader you do exactly what he did you take it head on you don't take you take responsibility you don't make excuses and you promise you us that it's not going to happen again. And I think we heard that from our coach today. Yeah. You always say our coach.

I feel like this is our coach. It's funny how you say that. You're big on our coach. He's our, he's our coach from BVN. Mark Pope, too. Yeah. It's like you, do you consider these people to be like your family? I would welcome them to my house for Christmas anytime. You already do it for the pool parties. That's true. The players are already there. I don't know if I have a pool party this year. Dane left. The pool parties may be over. I think it would be weird if you did. Yeah. It's time it.

It's over for a pool party. Yeah. I shut up, Mr. Don't invite us for the Christmas party. There's nobody that can talk about that less than you. I don't get invited to Ryan's party. We are going to talk basketball when we return. This is Kentucky Sports Radio.

Your mic did sound a little. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

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