Official buyout terms revealed after Mark Stoops' firing at Kentucky

Mark Stoops was fired after this season after thirteen years as the head coach at Kentucky. However, it was able to come about due to a newly agreed-upon severance for his buyout to be more easily paid out by UK.

Through the release of records, Kentucky has not only detailed the new contract for Will Stein, but also the breakdown of how they’ll be paying the buyout for Stoops. It was revealed that, while being paid out the same amount of money owed to him, both sides agreed for it to be done so on far more manageable, extended timeline of the next six years through 2031.

Per those details, Kentucky will already pay a total of just under $4.0 million over the first fifteen days since the firing of Stoops. From there, the Wildcats will owe quarterly payments to him of $6.75 million from now through April 1st, 2031, with still no mitigation or offset terms if Stoops does take another job elsewhere in that time. That still adds up to the original buyout of just over $37 million.

However, again, this timeframe is far more doable for UK to have decided to separate from Stoops. Had they done it on the original terms of his deal, Kentucky would have had to pay all of the $37 million over a span of just 60 days. Instead, the Wildcats will have 1,947 days to do so in segments, with his firing being official on December 1st, 2025.

This comes after what was another disappointing season for Kentucky as they finished at 5-7, which was the second-straight losing record for the Wildcats and capped a four-year stretch where they were 23-27 (.460). Debates about the future for Stoops had begun over the last season or so. He seemingly ended that again this year with a three-game winning streak to start November to get back to 5-5, but the result was still his firing after a pair of blowout road losses to end the season against Vanderbilt (45-17) and Louisville in the Governor’s Cup (41-0). Still, with it ending this way, especially at this new buyout, Stoops can maybe be better remembered now, as he is still the program’s all-time winningest coach, who reached a school record of bowl berths with eight consecutive, at 82-80 (.506)

It was a wonder of how this was laid out between the two sides, as Stoops may still be the head coach there today if the 60-day timeline had remained in place for Kentucky. This, though, makes it a far more viable decision, as the Wildcats move on in a better way from Stoops and to their new tenure under Stein.