{"id":435119,"date":"2024-11-11T14:12:40","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T19:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/?post_type=article&p=435119"},"modified":"2024-11-11T14:12:40","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T19:12:40","slug":"mark-stoops-delivers-emphatic-statement-on-speculation-he-may-step-down-at-kentucky","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/kentucky-football\/mark-stoops-delivers-emphatic-statement-on-speculation-he-may-step-down-at-kentucky\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Stoops delivers emphatic statement on speculation he may step down at Kentucky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Stoops heard the question and brushed it aside like an unwanted fly buzzing near his soup.<\/p>\n

Stoops is the longest-tenured head coach in the SEC. He’s been at Kentucky since 2013. He’s won his share of games, 66 of them, but has also lost his share, too, with 71 of those.<\/p>\n

This season has brought more of the latter, as Kentucky is 3-6 and has dropped 4 in a row. The Wildcats are a miserable 1-6 in the SEC, too, and they’ll get a breather from the SEC grind on Saturday with a home game against Murray State. But Stoops didn’t get a break during Monday’s weekly press conference, getting asked directly about speculation that he’s going to step down at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cZero percent chance I do that,” Stoops said<\/a>. “Next question.”<\/p>\n

When a coach or athlete for that matter says the words “next question” during a press conference, it usually means they’re agitated about the question or don’t want to discuss it. Whatever the case with Stoops really is, he doesn’t want any distractions as the Wildcats limp toward the finish line of an uneven season.<\/p>\n

And after the Murray State game, it’ll get really difficult again for Kentucky to end the year, as the Wildcats face ranked teams \u2014 Texas and Louisville. Saturday’s game against Murray State is set for a 1:30 p.m. ET kick on ESPN+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Stoops had a brief and direct response to a question about his future as Kentucky’s head coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269106,"featured_media":435127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","tags":[],"class_list":["post-435119","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_types-news","teams-kentucky-football"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/435119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}