An Embarrassing Stat Hangs Over Mark Stoops' Kentucky Football Program

Kentucky football has long been defined by streaks. Usually, those streaks more closely resemble skid marks. Mark Stoops inherited a decades-long losing streak to Florida. After a few attempts, he snapped it, then proceeded to beat the Gators five times in eight years. Stoops made similar headway against Louisville, winning five straight before back-to-back beatdowns in the Governor’s Cup.

After snapping some bad streaks, Stoops created a few black eyes that hung over the program. Between Florida wins in 2023 and 2025, Kentucky lost 11 straight SEC home games. That was also the first time Bush Hamdan orchestrated an offense that scored more than two touchdowns against a Power Conference foe. Through two years, Hamdan’s Kentucky offense have yet to score more than two touchdowns away from Kroger Field.

That’s a lot of ugly streak talk. My apologies. It’s not even the ugliest statistic of them all.

Kentucky is 0-49 in the Mark Stoops era when trailing by more than 14 points at any point in a game. Zero wins. Forty-nine losses.

The largest comeback victory for the Kentucky football team in the last 13 years happened all the way back in 2015. Eastern Kentucky had a two-touchdown lead with just under eight minutes to play, when Dorian Baker caught a pair of late touchdown passes, including one in overtime, to survive against the feisty FCS foe.

Yes, you’re reading that correctly. Kentucky’s only big comeback victory under Stoops was against EKU. That’s not the worst side effect of this ugly statistic.

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When Kentucky falls behind, the Fat Lady is already singing. Big Blue Nation knew the game was lost when Vanderbilt went up 17-0 with four minutes to play in the second quarter. There were still eight minutes to play before halftime when Louisville went up 17-0.

Obviously, you don’t need to be a Football Frank to know that it’s hard to overcome a large deficit when you’re playing in the SEC, but it shouldn’t be impossible. Mark Stoops said previously something to the effect of, “We’re not built to play from behind.” When his football teams dig themselves into a hole, there is no escaping. All that remains is hopelessness.

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