Kentucky's ideal Mark Stoops replacement would be the perfect homecoming story

Kentucky appears to be between a rock and a hard place when it comes to their successful head coach who is starting to grow stale in Lexington. Now that John Calipari has left for Arkansas, even more attention has been thrust upon longtime head football coach Mark Stoops. He is the longest tenured head coach in the SEC dating back to 2013. We have to wonder if he is on his way out now.

Faced with a massive buyout, it would take a pretty penny to move on from the best head coach Kentucky has had in my lifetime. Yes, there were moments under Hal Mumme and Rich Brooks that made Big Blue Nation proud, but Stoops has been a Kentucky institution for over a decade now. The Wildcats may never go to Atlanta, but every so often, they will field a team capable of 10 or so wins.

Given that his alma mater's gig may be opening up whenever Kirk Ferentz is probably asked to retire, there is an ideal candidate out there to replace Stoops at Kentucky should he be let go or leave on his own accord for Iowa. That would be former Kentucky linebacker and Tulane Green Wave head coach Jon Sumrall. He has the Greenies thriving in year one, right after doing incredible stuff over at Troy.

This is the sort of homecoming we can all get behind. It feels like an inevitability at some point, right?

Jon Sumrall would be the ideal eventual replacement for Mark Stoops

Not intending to draw any realistic parallels between my alma mater and Kentucky, but Georgia did eventually move on from its hall-of-fame head coach in favor of one of its former players. Mark Richt did take over at his alma mater of Miami after being asked to leave Athens after the 2015 season. Kirby Smart starred at safety for Georgia, but had never been a head coach up to that point either.

Prior to this season, the name that I was always drawn to with Kentucky should Stoops ever leave was their former offensive coordinator Liam Coen. He is a Sean McVay disciple having worked for him with the Los Angeles Rams on multiple occasions in between Kentucky stints. Coen left UK for the opportunity to reunite with Baker Mayfield as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers new offensive coordinator.

While I do think Bush Hamdan is a savvy offensive mind, I do wonder if Stoops has been at Kentucky too long, enough to the point where UK is a carbon copy of his alma mater of Iowa. Like the Hawkeyes, the Wildcats have great defenses and are elite on special teams, but their offenses leave so much to be desired. Sumrall is a defensive mind, but he has shown an ability to elevate talent.

Truth be told, he has coached at two of the better programs historically in the Group of Five at Tulane and Troy before that after leaving Stoops' staff for the Trojans in 2022. Troy may be in a bad spot now under Gerad Parker, but we know how good that program has been historically under Sumrall, Neal Brown and the iconic Larry Blakeney before that. Tulane was thriving previously under Willie Fritz.

The other thing that really stands out to me is what happened at a job Stoops was supposedly up for last offseason. He was in the mix to replace Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M. Stoops either did not want that job or was not as up for it as we thought he was. Fisher was replaced by his former defensive coordinator Mike Elko, who had a great two-year run at Duke before coming back to College Station.

And I will end with this. Kentucky has shown great investment in its football program throughout the entire Stoops era. I would expect for UK to do the same under whoever eventually replaces him. It will take the right head coach to lead the Wildcats into a new era. For my money, I would bet on one of your own, who just so happens to be arguably the best head coach in the Group of Five in Sumrall.

It may not happen after this year or even after next season, but Sumrall could lead Kentucky soon.