Getty Image
The football program at the University of Kentucky was down bad when Mark Stoops took the reins in 2013, and he’s done a pretty solid job turning things around in Lexington. With that said, they still have a ways to go if they want to compete with the rest of the SEC—including Georgia, a team that the head coach accused of deploying some unsavory tactics while trying to drum up donations from his fanbase.
Stoops was 2-10 in his inaugural season with the Wildcats, but as of this writing, he’s posted an overall record of 71-60 at the helm of a team that’s en route to punching its ticket to a bowl game for the eighth year in a row.
However, Kentucky has struggled to hold its own against the best teams in the conference during his tenure, as he’s racked up a grand total of two wins against SEC squads that ended up finishing the season with a winning record as the head coach of the Wildcats.
Stoops and Co. theoretically had a shot to add a third victory to that column when they faced off against Georgia on Saturday, but the top-ranked Bulldogs coasted to a 51-13 win to hand Kentucky its first loss of the season.
According to The Lexington Herald-Reader, Stoops reflected on the loss during a weekly radio appearance where he said he didn’t want to make any excuses before seemingly doing exactly that by calling out Georgia for exploiting the NIL Era and encouraging Kentucky fans to fork over some cash of their own if they want the program to be competitive, saying:
“Fans have that right [to complain]. I give it to them. I just encourage them to donate more, because that’s what those dudes are doing.
I can promise you Georgia, they bought some pretty good players. You’re allowed to these days. We could use some help.”
Stoops previously asserted he didn’t want to see Kentucky resort to NIL collectives in an attempt to secure the talents of elite players (which Georgia has undoubtedly done), so while I don’t know if it would be entirely fair to call him a hypocrite, accusing the Bulldogs of buying players while begging Kentucky supporters for cash is certainly an interesting choice.