LEXINGTON, Ky. _ The most shocking achievement for Mark Stoops and his resilient Kentucky football team is not that the Wildcats (7-1, 5-1) opened at No. 9 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings.
Nor is it that the Cats will face No. 6 Georgia (7-1, 5-1 SEC) Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Kroger Field in a winner-take-all showdown for the SEC East crown.
No, the most unexpected UK football accomplishment of 2018 is this: Next Tuesday, the Kentucky men's basketball team opens its season against hated rival Duke. Yet this week, I literally have not heard one UK fan talking about the hoops Cats' face-off with the House of Krzyzewski.
In the Big Blue Nation, the entire focus is the high-stakes football throw-down between the Cats and the Dawgs. That Kentucky football has stolen the spotlight from a UK-Duke men's basketball game is a bigger upset than the University of Maryland-Baltimore County over Virginia.
It's funny how quickly things can change. Back in the summer, the question that surrounded Stoops' tenure at Kentucky was what the coach needed to achieve in his sixth season not to end 2018 on the hot seat.
Now, many Cats backers are worrying about whether Kentucky can keep Stoops.
Having put UK someplace it has never been before _ one victory away from the SEC Championship Game _ should Stoops be looking to get out while the getting is good?
History says yes. Stoops, 51, is the 10th Kentucky head football coach in my lifetime.
Of the previous nine, five were fired; one resigned under pressure; one left for a more lucrative job after only two seasons; and two retired after honorably fighting the good fight.
All nine departed Lexington with overall losing records as Kentucky head coach.
Yet, for at least three reasons, the Kentucky coaching job Mark Stoops holds in 2018 is not the same as his nine most-recent predecessors had.
