Brown: Mark Stoops needs reset, or his tenure as Kentucky football coach won't end well

Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops sure could use a reset. Maybe that comes in the form of an individual player who renews his energy and enthusiasm for the game. Maybe that comes in the form of his team this season being enjoyable to coach and being able to exceed expectations.

The longest-tenured coach in the SEC is showing all the signs of being worn out. If he’s not able to find his joy and recalibrate, his time in Lexington won’t end well.

Stoops is entering his 12th season as head coach at UK.

Any time a coach stays in one place for as long as he has, there’s bound to be a period when things get stale. Where the same things that were once part of the challenge have now become problematic.

Stoops is at that point with the Wildcats.

Nothing comes easy for UK football, and he's showing through both words and actions that it is wearing him down.

Just last month in an interview with 24/7 Sports, Stoops lamented the amount of time he’s spent fundraising for UK’s name, image and likeness collective.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t know how long I can take dealing with what I’ve dealt with,” he told the outlet.

It’s to the point where not even Stoops’ $9 million salary, which is tied for the ninth highest among college football coaches nationally , can’t mask his frustrations.

Every coach — with the exception of Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss — who makes as much or more than him is at a school that has won a national championship in the last 30 years.

Stoops gets all the salary without all the headaches of having to be in the mix for a title or College Football Playoff berth every season.

What that $9 million can’t buy is peace of mind.

That’s part of what Texas A&M was offering as Stoops flirted with leaving for College Station at the end of last season. The Aggies have built-in advantages that Kentucky could never match, starting with a recruiting base in Texas that is virtually endless.

And Stoops would never complain about a lack of NIL resources with the amount of money A&M throws around.

Had some A&M boosters not sabotaged the deal, UK would have hit the trifecta in trotting out new head coaches in men’s and women’s basketball along with football.

Stoops, 57, is at a precarious age in football. His window is rapidly closing — if not already shut — in terms of leading a new program.

Most major college programs that hired a new coach this offseason went younger: Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer (49), Michigan’s Sherrone Moore (38), Texas A&M’s Mike Elko (47), Washington’s Jedd Fisch (48), Mississippi State’s Jeff Lebby (40), Arizona’s Brent Brennan (51), Syracuse’s Fran Brown (41), Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith (45), Boston College’s Bill O’Brien (54), Duke’s Manny Diaz (50) and UCLA’s DeShaun Foster (44).

The programs that hired older coaches — Indiana’s Curt Cignetti (63) and Houston’s Willie Fritz (64) — are jobs that are historically just as hard to win at as UK.

The Cats are operating at a consistently higher level in football under Stoops, who is still the winningest coach in program history despite his best season being wiped clean by the NCAA .

He’s pretty much maxed out what he can accomplish at UK. He’s made it a consistent winner. The Cats have a cycle of building up for a successful season only to need a few years to rebuild afterward.

But what does he have to show for it? Kentucky isn’t at a place where it can recruit itself in football and probably never will be.

Stoops has to keep attacking.

And that takes time. It takes motivation. And it takes an energy Stoops appears to be running out of.

Kentucky is the only place Stoops knows as a head coach. And I’m sure he’s forever grateful to athletics director Mitch Barnhart for giving him that chance.

But thankfulness only goes so far. Stoops is getting antsy now. If he can no longer answer his "why" at UK, the only questions left are when and how he’ll make his exit.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com , follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his column s.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Brown: Mark Stoops needs reset, or his tenure as Kentucky football coach won't end well