KNOXVILLE – A football coach saying football things Monday afternoon, Tennessee’s Butch Jones hit all the right notes about this Saturday’s sacrificial lamb for – and this was a snappy marketing move – “Noon at Neyland.”
Of SEC East brother Kentucky, which has lost 30 of its last 31 games to the Volunteers, Jones said, “We are playing a very talented and physical football team. I have a lot of respect for what (UK coach) Mark (Stoops) has built there and what he continues to build there.”
What Stoops was building two and a half games into this 2016 season was a coaching coffin for himself. The Wildcats had blown a 35-10 lead in a 44-35 home loss to Southern Miss in their opener, been shredded at Florida 45-7 and were in a 28-21 hole at home against New Mexico State.
At that point, there’s little doubt that Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart was starting to wonder whether he could afford not to raise the more than $17 million needed to buy out Stoops before the Big Blue fan base bought out Barnhart for considerably less.
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops will try to lead the Wildcats to their first win of the season when they face New Mexico State on Saturday. The Wildcats are 0-2 for the first time since 1996, and Stoops has pledged to become more involved on defense for his team.Yet that was also the game when UK lost quarterback Drew Barker for the season with a back injury and was forced to replace him with junior college transfer Stephen Johnson. The Wildcats rallied for a 62-42 win against NMSU, knocked off South Carolina the following week and had won three SEC games in a row before Saturday’s home loss to Georgia.