Matt Jones on Mark Stoops: 'If it doesn't get better, you can't bring this back.'

It’s do-or-die time for Mark Stoops as the head coach at Kentucky, says Kentucky Sports Radio‘s Matt Jones.

Back from his trip to South Africa with plenty to say after weeks off the local airwaves, he made it clear that while he’s rooting for a turnaround in Lexington and will be supporting the program one way or another, Stoops is coaching for his job from this point forward.

It starts with the current product not only being a losing one, but also a boring one — and fan engagement has plummeted because of both.

“I had a lot of time to sit and think about it, and here’s where I am. Mark’s got to finish the season and fans should support the team,” Jones said on Friday’s edition of KSR. “I know I’m gonna be watching the game tomorrow, hope people come out to KSBar and root like heck for him. Everybody did against South Carolina. We were full for the South Carolina game, people were excited. We have eight games left, might as well cheer and be excited.

“That being said, this can’t continue to go on. Kentucky football is a terrible combination of not good and boring. That’s an awful combination. Not only does it not feel like we have a chance to win these games, they’re also awful to watch.”

In the past, it’s been easy to blame the individual talent or coordinators. Remember when it was all Eddie Gran’s fault? Or that they picked wrong at quarterback? Or that player culture was an issue and cleaning house would fix everything? All of the finger-pointing and turnover deemed necessary at the time, only to find something else causing the next problem.

At the end of the day, only one constant remains: Stoops.

“Our offense is a complete disaster. I don’t blame Cutter Boley — I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t really blame Zach Calzada. And I’m going back and not blaming Brock Vandagriff or Devin Leary,” Jones continued. “At some point, when you bring in four high-profile quarterbacks and none of them work, you have to sit there and go, ‘Maybe it’s us, not them.’ At some point, you have to say that. You have an offensive coordinator that was here and is now 3-1 in the NFL and is kind of the toast of the NFL, and here, the offense sputtered, you have to sit here and ask, ‘Well, maybe it’s not them, maybe it’s us.’ When we have guys playing in the NFL who were free agents that played here, they were a part of defenses or offenses that didn’t have success, at some point, you have to sit here and say, ‘Maybe it’s not them, maybe it’s us.’

“There is one common denominator in all of this, and it’s Mark.”

Nothing will happen now or next week or even the rest of the regular season. Stoops deserves the entirety of the runway before deciding if the plane is going to take off or crash into a million pieces.

But we’ll all know by the end what’s coming.

“For me, Mark’s got eight games, seven games, whatever, left for me to see if I have any confidence,” Jones said. “But at this point, if it doesn’t get better, you can’t bring this back next year. If the program is not significantly better in November, you can’t run this back again.”

Back-to-back seasons of putrid results won’t necessarily be the key reason for change, if that’s how this all unfolds. It’ll be because slippage had already begun with the program trending in the wrong direction since 2022. And the wins from the high of 2021 have been vacated, so that’s not even something to lean on at this point.

The same coach who made people care and believe again has led the program to a complete 180. People no longer care, and they no longer believe.

With Kentucky at the bottom of the SEC watching programs like South Carolina, Missouri, Vanderbilt and even Mississippi State pass it by after the Wildcats worked so hard to jump ahead, what’s the justification for funding rosters that come with a suck tax in Lexington? You have to overpay for real talent in this territory, and who wants to write those checks?

“Apathy is going to hit, and when you — in 2025, where NIL and everything is so important, you cannot have apathy in your football program. We have it,” Jones said. “… Every one of them is either much better and on the rise or has made a coaching change. We are, definitively, 16th out of 16 in the SEC. We are definitively — it’s not even an argument — 16th out of 16. You can’t be there. You just can’t be there.”

Again, there is a lot of season left and an upset win at Georgia could totally flip the narrative overnight. Beat the Bulldogs and you’re right back on track, potentially getting the program back to bowl eligibility and trending upward.

But this isn’t fantasy land and nothing suggests we should expect the unexpected. We’d all love to be wrong, but what’s realistic here? Unfortunately, that answer just might be a winless SEC finish and a season somehow even worse than last at 3-9.

If that’s where this is going, it can’t continue.

“Within that level (near the bottom of the SEC), we are definitively the worst situation. Definitively. It’s not even arguable. We are definitively the worst situation, and you can’t keep that up,” Jones said. “When they go into this offseason, if they’re going to fix this, they’re gonna need $20 million worth of players. Who is giving that money? Who is giving that money if you don’t have a change?

“We have to either improve exponentially or this is going to have to switch.”

This weekend could tell us everything, one way or another.