Mark Stoops Kentucky’s Mark Stoops acknowledges the crowd yelling “Stoops” after he helped coach the Wildcats defeat Louisville 52-21 Saturday night. Nov. 27, 2021 Louisville Vs Kentucky 2021 Governors Cup

Mark Stoops won’t be leaving Lexington anytime soon.

Stoops and the Kentucky Wildcats agreed to terms on a new contract extension Sunday. The extension will keep the Wildcats’ football head coach in town until 2030. Action Network reporter and college football insider Brett McMurphy tweeted Sunday, “Mark Stoops receives an extension at Kentucky thru 2030 season, increasing his salary from $6.35 million to $8.6 million/year.”

News of an extension for Stoops (seen above after a 2021 win over the Louisville Cardinals) isn’t a surprise. In his since-2013 run with the Wildcats, Stoops has been one of the most successful coaches in Kentucky football history. While the Wildcats have been having somewhat of a down year in 2022 (they’re 6-5 following a 16-6 loss to the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs Saturday), they won 10 games in 2021. And that was the second time Stoops won 10 games with Kentucky; he did that in 2018 as well. He’s won 65 games in his career as the Wildcats’ head coach to date, and will have coached them to seven straight bowl appearances after this season.

The Wildcats have also won four straight bowl games with Stoops at the helm. They have won, consecutively, the Citrus Bowl, Belk Bowl, Gator Bowl, and the Citrus Bowl again in the last four seasons.

Stoops and Kentucky will be a pairing that continues to just make sense. While instability in basketball might loom, the Wildcats don’t have to worry about it on the gridiron.

The college football world reacted to the news of Stoops’ extension on Sunday.

[Brett McMurphy on Twitter; photo from The Lexington Courier-Journal, via USA Today Sports]

About Chris Novak

Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022