Mark Stoops
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 4-4
2016TaxSlayer BowlL 18-33
2017Music City BowlL 23-24
2018Citrus BowlW 27-24
2019Belk BowlW 37-30
2020Gator BowlW 23-21
2021Citrus BowlW 20-17
2022Music City BowlL 0-212023Gator BowlL 35-38
Report card
Above the median on both sides of the ball — 56th percentile offense, 66th percentile defense.
Kentucky, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
8-17 against his rivals. Just 1-4 against Shane Beamer.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Gran; passed more under Coen.
9,983 run and pass snaps at Kentucky, 2013–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Five numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 8 ranked Kentucky classes of his own have averaged #28 nationally — best #14, worst #37.
His class — he had the full signing cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2025 roster arrived on his watch — 114 of 114 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 22% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
This tenure spans the 2021 transfer-portal tracking floor: seasons before 2021 structurally cannot be classified portal-vs-not (they land in 'unknown' below), so the portal-share figure understates how many pre-2021 arrivals might have been transfers under the pre-portal-tracking transfer rules.
22% of his 204 new players since 2022 came through the portal (FBS programs, same seasons: 22%). His share was 18% in 2022 and 33% in 2025.
Graded on the players who arrived and the players who left together, his portal seasons came out better than most FBS programs’ in 1 of the 4 seasons graded. our read
Each player counts once, in the season he arrived. 2021, the first season of portal tracking here, is left off because its arrival records look incomplete (about 31 new players per FBS team, against 52 in 2022). Portal grade: the site’s position-value-weighted scoring (the same engine as the Portal Heat feed and the “Who won the portal” grade): the value of the players who came in minus the value of the ones who left, ranked against every FBS program’s grade that same season. A season with fewer than 4 transfers in and out is not graded.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his Kentucky rosters have averaged 9 lb heavier than the FBS average (2013–2025) — heavier than 94% of FBS coaching runs since 2010. In the three seasons before he arrived, Kentucky’s line averaged 5 lb heavier than the FBS average.
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 56 of 253 signees (22%) across his 2013–2025 tenure, drawn from 24 states in all. Next: KY (49).
49% of his signees come from OH and its 5 border states (KY 49, MI 10, PA 5, IN 3).
Off this map: 10 signees to the west (TX 4, AZ 2, others).
- median hometown distance
- 295 mi
- within 100 mi
- 27%
- within 500 mi
- 76%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 5%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 32 of them himself; 2 arrived under Joker Phillips. 4 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | R4.13 | Jalen Farmer | Offensive Guard |  Indianapolis Colts | |
| 2026 | R5.13 | Jager Burton | Center |  Green Bay Packers | |
| 2026 | R5.28 | Kendrick Law | Wide Receiver |  Detroit Lions | |
| 2026 | R7.21 | Seth McGowan | Running Back | Indianapolis Colts | |
| 2025 | R1.30 | Maxwell Hairston | Cornerback |  Buffalo Bills | |
| 2025 | R4.07 | Deone Walker | Defensive Tackle | Buffalo Bills | |
| 2024 | R3.06 | Andru Phillips | Cornerback |  New York Giants | |
| 2024 | R3.08 | Trevin Wallace | Linebacker |  Carolina Panthers |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | R4.28 | Ray Davis | Running Back | Buffalo Bills | |
| 2024 | R6.42 | Devin Leary | Quarterback |  Baltimore Ravens | |
| 2023 | R2.02 | Will Levis | Quarterback |  Tennessee Titans | |
| 2023 | R6.16 | Chris Rodriguez Jr. | Running Back |  Washington Commanders | |
| 2023 | R7.15 | Carrington Valentine | Cornerback | Green Bay Packers | |
| 2022 | R2.11 | Wan'Dale Robinson | Wide Receiver | New York Giants | |
| 2022 | R2.14 | Josh Paschal | Defensive End | Detroit Lions | |
| 2022 | R3.01 | Luke Fortner | Center |  Jacksonville Jaguars | |
| 2022 | R5.02 | Darian Kinnard | Offensive Guard |  Kansas City Chiefs | |
| 2021 | R1.19 | Jamin Davis | Inside Linebacker |  Washington Football Team | |
| 2021 | R2.12 | Kelvin Joseph | Cornerback |  Dallas Cowboys | |
| 2021 | R6.08 | Quinton Bohanna | Defensive Tackle | Dallas Cowboys | |
| 2021 | R6.16 | Brandin Echols | Cornerback |  New York Jets | |
| 2021 | R6.22 | Landon Young | Offensive Tackle |  New Orleans Saints | |
| 2021 | R7.04 | Phil Hoskins | Defensive Tackle | Carolina Panthers | |
| 2020 | R3.16 | Lynn Bowden Jr. | Wide Receiver |  Las Vegas Raiders | |
| 2020 | R4.15 | Logan Stenberg | Offensive Guard | Detroit Lions | |
| 2019 | R1.07 | Josh Allen | Outside Linebacker | Jacksonville Jaguars | |
| 2019 | R2.22 | Lonnie Johnson Jr. | Cornerback |  Houston Texans | |
| 2019 | R3.35 | Mike Edwards | Safety |  Tampa Bay Buccaneers | |
| 2019 | R4.20 | Benny Snell Jr. | Running Back |  Pittsburgh Steelers | |
| 2019 | R7.18 | George Asafo-Adjei | Offensive Guard | New York Giants | |
| 2016 | R6.15 | Josh Forrest | Inside Linebacker |  Los Angeles Rams | recruited under Joker Phillips |
| 2015 | R1.22 | Bud Dupree | Outside Linebacker | Pittsburgh Steelers | |
| 2015 | R4.23 | Za'Darius Smith | Defensive End | Baltimore Ravens | |
| 2014 | R5.11 | Avery Williamson | Inside Linebacker | Tennessee Titans | recruited under Joker Phillips |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
In his own words
Every quote, back to October 2026
In his own words
It’s easy to change a climate. You know, you change a uniform, talk a little game, dance around, put on some stupid sunglasses and you can change a climate, but to change a culture, it’s at the core
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
5th-best Kentucky tenure of 16 by the numbers.
Followed Joker Phillips (2010–2012) · succeeded by Will Stein (2026–now).
| Season | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||||||||||
| Record | 2-10 | 5-7 | 5-7 | 7-6 | 7-6 | 10-3 | 8-5 | 5-6 | 10-3 | 7-6 | 7-6 | 4-8 | 5-7 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | — | — | |
| Coordinators | ||||||||||||||
| OC | — | Neal Brown | Shannon Dawson | Eddie Gran / Darin Hinshaw | Eddie Gran / Darin Hinshaw | Eddie Gran / Darin Hinshaw | Eddie Gran / Darin Hinshaw | Eddie Gran / Darin Hinshaw | Liam Coen | Rich Scangarello | Liam Coen | Bush Hamdan | Bush Hamdan | |
| DC | — | D. J. Eliot | D. J. Eliot | D. J. Eliot | Matt House | Matt House | Brad White | Brad White | Brad White / Jon Sumrall | Brad White | Brad White | Brad White | Brad White | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||||||||||
| Offense | 23 | 29 | 39 | 70 | 47 | 47 | 83 | 19 | 61 | 10 | 70 | 13 | 24 | |
| Defense | 10 | 36 | 58 | 18 | 9 | 70 | 69 | 36 | 60 | 92 | 52 | 68 | 53 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 43.2 | 50.0 | 45.7 | 31.4 | 37.9 | 34.3 | 26.8 | 31.5 | 42.3 | 30.1 | 43.5 | 36.2 | 37.0 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 36.4 | 45.8 | 33.0 | 24.0 | 33.7 | 24.3 | 23.2 | 29.2 | 37.7 | 46.2 | 54.7 | 37.0 | 29.6 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 38.9 | 36.4 | 35.9 | 28.9 | 15.0 | 25.8 | 42.1 | 30.0 | 40.0 | 31.7 | 30.0 | 38.7 | 38.7 | |
Underperforms his recruiting talent on offense and performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on defense.
Brings in bigger-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
2 player-seasons honored (All-America / national award): Darian Kinnard (2021), Barion Brown (2023)
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
1st all-time at Kentucky
Was he good?
A mixed record — ahead of expectations by some measures here, behind by others. The honest read is that it depends which lens you use.
+11.7 pts at Kentucky · #178 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.