The coaching carousel finally has a permanent hire on board as it's being reported that Mark Stoops will become Kentucky's head coach, replacing the fired Joker Phillips. Stoops is currently the defensive coordinator at Florida State and is still on campus as of this writing.
However, according to UK's athletic director Mitch Barnhart's twitter it's safe to say this hire is happening as he tweeted congratulations earlier on Tuesday afternoon.
With this hire Mark becomes the 3rd Stoops brother to become a head coach at a BCS program, with Bob coaching at Oklahoma and Mike having been the coach at Arizona before this season. Could this be the greatest family of coaches college football has ever seen?
There's no doubt the Wildcats were looking to swing for the fences so to speak with this hire, especially in the rough and tumble world of the SEC. Kentucky has been a doormat in the conference for awhile because they couldn't play defense, which Stoops' hire addresses big time. He's been around the block and has developed some great defenses with stops at South Florida, Wyoming, Miami, and Arizona before his current gig at Florida State.
Clearly this hire's timeframe will be interesting for his current employers at FSU who are prepping for this weekend's ACC Championship game against Georgia Tech.
Stoops played his college football at Iowa under Hayden Fry from 1986 to 1988 and hasn't been a head coach at the collegiate level yet.
With this hire Kentucky jumps out in front of Arkansas, Auburn, and Tennessee for hiring coaches in the SEC and rumors are running wild that had Stoops linked to at least two of these jobs as well.
