ATLANTA — Before the SEC expanded into a 16-team behometh, Kentucky football and Missouri once were joined at the hip. In the days of league divisions, the pair clashed annually as members of the SEC East. Despite their yearly battles, the coaches at the respective schools — Mark Stoops at UK, Eliah Drinkwitz at MU — formed a collegial relationship.
At the conference’s football media days in 2023, Drinkwitz recalled a funny interaction with Stoops when both happened to be vacationing at the same beach earlier that year.
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The two continued ribbing each other at this year’s media days get-together Thursday.
Drinkwitz flagged down Stoops in a hallway between the various interview rooms, loudly yelling the latter’s name. Then, during Stoops’ time in the main media room, he began his opening statement stating he knew why Drinkwitz “has a reason not to talk about certain things” — a reference to the Mizzou coach’s earlier comments about conspiracy theories.
“I’ll keep that between myself and him and a few colleagues. Got to keep on eye on ol’ Drink there,” Stoops said with a smirk.
Stoops would be wise to keep tabs on Drinkwitz for another reason: His colleague has lifted the Tigers to a level the Wildcats yearn to reach.
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A New Year’s Six bowl. Consecutive 10-win campaigns. And a team that has been on the cusp of the College Football Playoff each of the past two seasons.
Elsewhere in the tradition-rich SEC, those are bare-minimum goals. Blue bloods such as Georgia and Alabama. LSU and Texas.
Missouri isn’t at that echelon.
But it’s closer than UK or Mississippi State or Vanderbilt. Those three, along with Mizzou and South Carolina, are the only schools in the league without an NCAA-recognized national championship.
Kentucky and Missouri’s football programs don’t open the athletics departments’ checkbooks to the extent of their peers; as recently as fiscal year 2022, the pair ranked among the bottom three in the conference in terms of football spending among public universities, ahead of only Mississippi State ($29.1 million).
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Money isn’t the only connection the Tigers and Wildcats share.
Another is the lack of high-end high school talent.
Yes, the Bluegrass State produces a handful of power-conference caliber players each year. The Show-Me State usually churns out more, thanks to the Kansas City and St. Louis metro areas.
Yet neither state has the embarassment of high school stars residing in Florida, Georgia or Texas.
Still, Drinkwitz has found a way to overcome those shortcomings the past two seasons. The season-capping victory in 2023 occurred in the Cotton Bowl, where Missouri overwhelmed Ohio State, 14-3. Even that win came with a caveat in the mind of some Tigers’ detractors, pointing out the Buckeyes were shorthanded — superstar receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. had opted out to begin preparing for the NFL draft, while starting quarterback Kyle McCord already had departed, joining Syracuse as a transfer.
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Missouri also didn’t elicit much respect from outsiders last season.
None of it affects Drinkwitz, though.
“Praise and blame are both the same. You can’t care about it either way,” he said Thursday. “We have a ‘something to prove’ mindset. Whether you’re talking about our coaching staff, our players, we all have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder. At the end of the day, (during a) two-minute drive, fourth quarter, (outsiders’ opinions are) not what you’re thinking about.
“You think about your trust and belief in each other, doing your job at a higher level.”
Stoops struck a similar tone.
No, he’s not entering this fall off back-to-back double-digit-win seasons.
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But his program is trying to redevelop the good vibes it had earlier in his tenure.
“For us, we have to take the mindset into this year the same way we attack the offseason,” he said. “As football coaches, we use this term a lot, but for us it was like a ‘fourth-and-1 mentality.’ That moment in a fourth-and-1 situation demands urgency, unity and execution. We obviously needed to have a strong offseason.
“Every rep, every lift, every team meeting — no matter what we’re doing, we have to embrace that challenge.”
UK went 4-8 overall (1-7 in SEC play) in 2024, the program’s worst showing since 2013, Stoops’ first season.
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“When you … have a bad year like that, I had to take a good step back, analyze each and every thing in our program, in our staff and our players,” he said.
If Stoops is determined to leave no stone unturned in his quest to return Kentucky to relevancy in the SEC and beyond, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to turn his gaze westward.
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mark Stoops, Kentucky football should take page form Missouri Tigers
