Preface

Last week we took a look at a handful of candidates, among them Doeren, Jones, Graham (compared him to Sumlin), and Mullen (whose star has risen dramatically in 2 weeks).  We also looked at how Franklin and Strong would look as candidates if this was 9 months ago.  Earlier this week we took a close look at the "Beilein like" Gary Patterson.  Let's now look at darkhorse candidate Mark Stoops.

Normal caveats apply:

• I am not an AD nor do I have a full time staff to focus on one of of the most important decisions over the next decade.   These are superficial reports based on raw data.  If  I were an AD I'd be doing a lot of on the ground work on each of these people's backgrounds starting from their playing days on forward  to every coaching stop. 
• Past results do not guarantee a damn thing.  But that is all we can go on.
• These are not necessarily my top candidates (read: Jim Harbaugh) but people we could get and are interesting and not "Sumlin, Shaw, Gundy redux"
• I believe an elite level coach gets results within 2-3 years, by results I don't mean 11-2 but improving a bad program or maintaining a good program
• W/L record is not the be all and end all - what Gary Barnett did for Northwestern is more impressive than what a lot of coaches have done at USC or Bama or Texas over the years.  Spurrier went and won at Duke for example early in his career.  Or just see John Beilein.
• Adjust everything for conference, level of competition, and ability to get recruits
• I don't care about systems - a good coach will coach up players.  It's about the Jimmy and Joes not the X's and O's.

 

Next candidate.... Mark Stoops, age: 47

Summary:  Mark Stoops is currently the head coach at the University of Kentucky, which like Michigan is a basketball school.

/s

/not s (damnit)

Much like his 2 older brothers in CFB, Mark rose up the defensive ranks before landing his first HC gig.  Mark is the 4th and youngest brother in a line of Stoops hailing from Youngstown, OH.  Most famous in the family is the 2nd oldest brother, Bob Stoops who runs the excellent program at Oklahoma.  While not quite as revered as Saban and Meyer, Bob is widely considered a top 10 coach in the nation who maybe doesn't win the big one as often as his fan base would like.... but 99% other fan bases would kill for.

Bloodlines are a positive thing to have but not a guarantee of any success.  Arizona found this out with the hiring of Mark's older brother (and Bob's younger) Mike.  An 8 year stint in the desert left Mike Stoops with a 41-50 record and a lot of mediocrity.  (Mark was his DC for a long portion of this reign in the desert)  So you can't just throw a Stoops against a wall and expect them all to stick. 

But back to Mark.  He has focused on the DBs his whole career even when a DC which I like because in the modern game the DEs and DBs usually make or break your defenses.  His first major stint was DB coach for 3 years at Miami, followed by his move to Arizona for brother Mike, and then over to FSU for Jimbo Fisher before landing the Kentucky job.

Big 10 footprint?  A major asterisk here.  Much like Dan Mullen, until the Kentucky job, much of Stoops Midwest exposure was due to nothing more than being born in the area.  Which doesn't help you one bit in terms of relationships with HS coaches.  However, I am going to raise a large caveat with Stoops v Mullen.  Stoops is from Youngstown, OH which is not only a key football area of the state but not too far from neighbor PA.  (2 birds, 1 stone)  Further, Mark's oldest brother (and deceased dad) coached in the Youngstown area for decades so the Stoops name means something in this region unlike Mullen.  So that - combined with his last 2 years at Kentucky does give him some of that footprint. 

Recruiting? Kentucky's classes had ranked 60ish in the few years prior to Mark's arrivals in 2013.  But in his 2 years there Stoops has pulled down the 29th and 17th ranked classes.  That's at Kentucky fergodsakes.  Yes, he does have the conference to sell but let's repeat - this is Kentucky fergodsakes; these are better rankings than Dan Mullen has been recruiting at Miss State in year 4-5.  And keep in mind he only had 3 MONTHS to put together the 29th ranked class after Joker Phillips forgettable reign.  Now... do we ask HOW Stoops put together such classes? (I see you Hugh Freeze)  Well this is your own Pandora Box to open; I have no idea of course.  If he is doing it clean - it would be impressive.

Now to the main question - can this guy have great success as a head coach?  It's an open question and much like Doeren you wish he had 1 more full year in a Big 5 conference before making an assessment.  But frankly we don't have that time here since we have an opening in 2 months (allegedly).  We need to make a determinaton by December 2014.  2013 was a horrid year for UK football - but it was horrid in 2012 before Stoops came as well.  Early returns on 2014 are promising but certainly inconclusive.  And maybe they will remain inconclusive at the end of the year.  But as we go through the Tier chart of potential coaches: (i) Hail Mary Harbaughs (ii) Miles (iii) Patterson - Mullen - Graham types ... you might find yourself facing the fourth tier.  And of that tier - pending what happens in the next 2 months, the Wolverine nation may cast our eyes at the youngest Stoops.

Here is what Stoops faces in the weeks ahead after a beating of a baby seal this weekend:

• @LSU (a very young team, especially offense which is not up to par with traditional LSU teams)
• Miss State (I see you Dan Mullen - Miss State could overlook this game after a ton of SEC West clashes)
• @Missouri (Indiana already beat them this year)
• Georgia (Tennessee played them very evenly...and they may have lost Gurley)
• @Tenn (see Georgia comment, and they played a pedestrian Florida team equal)
• @Louisville (Petrino has them right where Charlie Strong left off)

Is this an easy schedule?  Hell no.  But is this as bad as it would have looked 2 years ago or 7 years ago?  No.  These are not vintage versions of Georgia, LSU or Tennessee.  Miss State is still a TBD team who will be emotionally spent by the time they visit Kentucky.  Missouri was beaten by Kentucky's half-brother Indiana.  So what does Stoops need to accomplish in the coming 2 months?  I don't have a number in stone but 3-3 in that group of games without getting blown out by more than ~14ish in any losses would be a good start.  It would mean hiring a guy who had a very sad record as a HC but whose trendlines were all going in the correct direction.  2-4, or 1-5 with a few blowouts?  Then it's much more difficult to make the case.

 

Recent (10 years) coaching background

• 2004-2009: DC/DB at Arizona
• 2010-2012:  DC/DB at FSU
• 2013-2014::  HC at Kentucky

Analysis:  Not a job hopper but definitely a man who got some breaks due to his name.  Was a coach for DBs at Miami (YTM) very young, and graduated to DC at Arizona under his brother by his late 30s.  Success was gradual there but eventually a solid defense was built, leading to a switch over to FSU where he took over a bad defense left over from Bowden's last "mail it in" year and turned it around in 2 years.  That led to a promotion to one of the bottom 3 jobs in the SEC.

 

Results

Caveat for results ----> (a) nothing exists in a vacuum (b) as a coordinator you can benefit or be penalized if your HC is good or bad or average (c) injuries or graduation can change your results dramatically in any 1 year.  This is the type of stuff you'd research as an AD staff on every potential candidate.

I will break down his results at 3 time frames - DC/DB at Zona, DC/DB at FSU, HC at Kentucky.

(1) DC/DB at Arizona

After Mike Stoops spun out of Oklahoma and into his own gig at Arizona he brought younger brother Mark over to run his defense.  The defense was bad when the Stoops arrived and Mark was able to incrementally improve it step by step over time.  Nothing came overnight  however.  Here is how the defenses of Mark Stoops compared to the prior year (2003).

	W/L	Tot Off	Tot Def
2003			109
2004			61
2005			86
2006			49
2007			53
2008			24
2009			25

As always, I penalize Big 10/ACC defenses for playing a lot of sluggish, less than talented offenses while I give a bonus to Big 12/Pac 12 defenses for playing more sophisticated air attacks (with a lot more NFL type QBs at the helm).   So what we find with Stoops is gradual improvement over time and by year 5-6 he had a mid 20s Pac 12 defense which translates (IMO) to a mid teens Big 10 defense.  Considering the type of recruits Arizona gets that isn't bad.

 

(2) DC/DB at FSU

As Jimbo Fisher took over for Bobby Bowden, Mark Stoops was hired as DC.  Much like Lloyd Carr, Bowden probably wasn't going at 100% in his last year.  The once excellent Mickey Andrews defenses - chock full of NFL talent - disappeared in 2009.  It is a wonder to imagine that FSU could post a 100+ defense but that is what happened.   Here is how Stoops did in his 3 years versus the prior year in 2009.

	W/L	Tot Off	Tot Def
2009			108
2010			42
2011			4
2012			2

Frankly, this is the most encouraging part of the Mark Stoops resume.  Yes he was given a lot of prime time talent but he didn't waste it.  In 2 years the total defense ranking went from 108 to 4.  And 2012 was just as good.  With a HC you'd like to see excellence on one side of the ball and unlike the Arizona stint you can clearly see an elite defense here - again with the caveat FSU recruits top 5 almost every year.

 

(3) HC at Kentucky

I prefer to have much more data in terms of offensive / defensive statistics and major win/losses for a head coach candidate but there is not much to go on with Mark Stoops.  There is little we can analyze at Kentucky as 2013 was a horror show at 2-10 with the only wins versus 2 baby seals.  That was the same record as Joker Phillips had in his last year in 2012. Losses were constant, although a few were at least not blowouts.  That's about all the praise one can give.  Offensive and defensive rankings in 2013 were likewise horrid.

We do know what system he wants to run offensively and thats "Air Raid" with OC Neal Brown.  Brown is a baby at 34 years old who was OC at Texas Tech under Tommy Tuberville before returning to his home state to coach with Stoops.  If Stoops leaves they might just offer the HC job to Brown so who knows who the OC would be at Michigan - an important point for a defensive oriented HC.

2014 has started off better with a 4-1 record, however 2 of those wins are baby seals.  Kentucky lost a heartbreaker to a mediocre Florida in OT, beat Vanderbilt 17-7, and beat 3-3 South Carolina 45-38.  Four of the five games have been at home.  The meat of the schedule awaits, although as written above for a SEC schedule it's not impossible.

It's going to be difficult to evaluate Stoops even on these last 7 games and in a perfect world we'd have 1 more year (year 3) to analyze Stoops...but we don't have that opportunity.

 

Overall

Mark Stoops is a darkhorse candidate that may emerge if Kentucky can put in an impressive end of year ... and a lot of more prominent candidates are not interested in the Michigan job.  Of course, impressive by Kentucky standards is not the same as for most schools.  No matter how he finishes this year he'd have a losing record as a HC and very little HC experience but he has been around the block in 3 solid programs prior to Kentucky so is not a newbie on how to coach.  All the intangibles line up well - of course the main intangible (can you win big as a head coach?) is going to be mostly a mystery.  But outside of that "minor" issue the intangibles of age, recruiting prowess (if "clean"), pedigree, ability to do well on 1 side of the ball, and OH connection are all positives.  Yet you can see with his brother Mike that those things don't guarantee you anything.  But at least Mark would be recruiting a region his name has more recognition than where Mike was recruiting.

You'd be buying a trajectory as a HC more than a great history with Mark Stoops.  This of course assumes UK doesnt blow up in the coming 2 months (i.e. 1-5 or 0-6).  Stoops wouldn't be option A or B (barring a 7-0 run to end the year) but of the C class candidates - if and when it got to that - he'd be someone I'd be more interested in than many names thrown around.