Why Texas A&M Vetoed the Hiring of Mark Stoops

All signs were pointing toward Stoops leaving Kentucky for College Station, but instead Mike Elko is the new Aggies head coach.

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (bad-weather cleats sold separately in Manhattan—the Little Apple—where Kansas State gave up touchdowns of 71, 77, 79, 60, 33 and 82 yards to Iowa State, somehow losing despite running 67 more plays than the Cyclones):

First Quarter: CFP Committee Stress Test

Second Quarter: Texas A&M’s Stoops Veto

For much of the day Saturday, Texas A&M (11) appeared to be on a collision course with hiring Mark Stoops (12) of Kentucky as its next coach. The Wildcats upset Louisville early in the afternoon, then the Aggies lost to LSU, and then the deck of the aircraft carrier was cleared for athletic director Ross Bjork to land the Stoops plane.

This was so far down the road that sources told Sports Illustrated that Stoops was telling some staff members, friends and boosters Saturday night he was leaving for College Station. Then something happened.

Stoops has led Kentucky for 11 seasons and is the winningest coach in program history, but has just two winning SEC records in that span.  :: Jordan Prather/USA TODAY Sports

The word coming out of Aggieland was that the offer was rescinded. At 1:02 a.m. ET, Stoops put out a tweet that said, in part, “I knew in my heart I couldn’t leave the University of Kentucky right now.” Since Stoops was telling people just hours earlier that he was going, Texas A&M pulling the plug on the deal is the more believable scenario.

This was not a populist revolt along the lines of Tennessee (13) nuking the hiring of Greg Schiano in 2017. That was fueled by disingenuous character assassination that Volunteers fans employed with Schiano by invoking ties to the Penn State Jerry Sandusky scandal. In this instance, A&M backers at least were honest about declaring that they don’t think Stoops is a good enough coach, and this veto started in the boardroom.

Regents and/or big-dollar boosters told Bjork they wouldn’t support the hiring of Stoops, sources tell SI. As a general rule, letting people off-campus decide who your coach should be is not a great strategy—athletic directors are paid a lot of money to make these decisions. If they’re not good at it, get a new AD. But ADs have been told to go back and do better before by their overseeing board. (See: Missouri, which told then AD Jim Sterk to do better than the list of candidates he was pursuing. That admonishment and coaching-search reboot eventually led to the hiring of Eli Drinkwitz, who just went 10–2 in his fourth season.)

As for whether Stoops would have been a bad hire at A&M: That’s debatable. He’s done the hard work of making Kentucky competitive, no small task. He’s won 10 games in a season twice, in 2018 and ’21. He’s beaten former nemesis Florida three years in a row and rival Louisville five straight times. He’s the winningest coach in Kentucky history and largely popular with the fans.

But Stoops’s program has shown signs of being past its peak. The past two seasons have been disappointments, going 14–11 overall and 6–10 in the SEC. Stoops’s record has been padded by playing three lightweight nonconference games every year—38.4% of his career wins are against low-level FBS or FCS opponents. He’s been paid a ton of money to never win the SEC East and produce just two winning SEC records in 11 seasons. He feuded with men’s basketball coach John Calipari, which led to both men being admonished as basically spoiled brats by athletic director Mitch Barnhart.

After Stoops was vetoed, A&M moved on quickly to Duke coach Mike Elko (14). This wasn’t an automatic slam dunk move for Elko, who had pulled out of the Michigan State search because he liked being at Duke. Sources tell SI that Elko left A&M’s private jet waiting on the tarmac for about 90 minutes late Sunday night before committing to taking the job and getting on the plane.

Elko might actually be Stoops in younger form—a 46-year-old former defensive coordinator who is on his way up, instead of a 56-year-old former defensive coordinator who might now feel like he stayed too long in a hard job.

Elko did terrific work at Duke, going 9–4 last year and 7–5 this year despite losing star quarterback Riley Leonard to injury for five games. He has institutional knowledge and recruiting experience in Texas, having been defensive coordinator at A&M from 2018 to ’21. He seems to have some of the organizational acumen that the fired Jimbo Fisher either lacked or discarded later in his career.

Is he good enough to beat Alabama and LSU? More urgently in the Lone Star State, is he good enough to beat 2024 SEC arrival Texas, which is rolling under third-year coach Steve Sarkisian (15)? Texas A&M didn’t capitalize on an 11-year head start in the SEC on the Longhorns, and now the league is becoming more competitive than ever.

This is a program that has rarely been able to go from good to great. A&M is a historic underachiever, given the resources and recruiting territory and fan passion. We’ll see whether Elko can change that. He’s got a chance.

Three searches, three reactions

A day after Bjork was having his prospective Stoops hire rejected, Mississippi State (16) athletic director Zac Selmon was literally being hoisted on the shoulders of Bulldogs players at the airport after delivering Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby as their new coach. Between that and the fan turnout to greet Lebby, it was quite an SEC sight. For some coaches and ADs, those first few moments of euphoric welcome turn out to be as good as it gets. Mississippi State is a hard job.

Lebby is a talented offensive coach whose ties to Art Briles (17) and the sordid end of that regime at Baylor have been laundered through Central Florida (2018 to ’19), Mississippi (’20 to ’21) and Oklahoma (’22 to ’23). Briles is Lebby’s father-in-law, and Briles’s appearance on the field in Sooners gear after an Oklahoma game this season drew significant blowback—including a statement of disapproval from athletic director Joe Castiglione. Selmon, who was an assistant AD at Oklahoma before going to Mississippi State, could face a similar reaction if Briles becomes publicly intertwined with the Bulldogs program. (It might be less pronounced at a school that didn’t compete against Baylor during the Briles era, but there are a lot of people who will recoil at the very sight of Briles.)

While there was initial anger in College Station and euphoria in Starkville, the reaction to Michigan State (18) hiring Jonathan Smith away from Oregon State was general satisfaction. Aside from sharing a name with an unsuccessful former coach of the Spartans (John L. Smith, 22–26 from 2003 to ’06), this Jon Smith should work out well. He checks a lot of the requisite boxes in East Lansing.

A former assistant to the great Chris Petersen at Boise State and Washington, Smith has shown the ability to build a program in the shadow of a more prominent in-state rival. Oregon State lacks a program-building sugar daddy like Oregon had in Phil Knight, but the Beavers are 2–2 the last four years against the Ducks and have had three straight winning seasons for the first time since 2007 to ’09. Smith is a good offensive coach, a savvy recruiter and a guy who can build a program without gimmickry.

Smith’s challenge will be adapting to the Midwest—particularly as a recruiter—after spending his entire career out West, but some intelligent staff hires should aid the transition. Michigan State has resources; it will no longer face the triple terror of Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State every season; and when operating well it should be a contender for a bid to a 12-team playoff. Given the conference travails at Oregon State, this was a no-brainer decision by Smith.

(Biggest early winner in the coaching carousel is agent Clint Dowdle. After years of working with Jimmy Sexton at CAA, Dowdle departed last summer to head up the coach and executive representation division of the WME agency. Dowdle has had an immediate impact in his new role—both Elko and Smith are Dowdle clients.)

Coaches: Nobody wants to hear you whine about NIL

Football coaches always have complaints. Some are legitimate, but many of them are self-serving, myopic and based solely on something a rival has that they do not—yet everyone in their orbit listens and reacts. They’re often the most powerful people on their campuses.

But it’s time to draw a line on coaches complaining about not having enough NIL money to compensate players in a way that allows State U to keep up with State Tech. Listening to multimillionaires try to bully money out of their fan base is unseemly, obnoxious and utterly ignorant. Yet they keep coming.

This was then Michigan State coach Mel Tucker (19) during the summer: “I don’t know how we can expect to win the Big Ten and get in the playoffs and win a national title if we don’t have the best players. I don’t know how you do that. … NIL is a big issue right now. You’ve got teams in the conference spending $12 to $13 million on NIL. We’re not even close to that.” At the time, Tucker was making $9.5 million.

Similarly blunt comments came from Stoops after Kentucky was drilled by Georgia. Stoops is making $8.6 million.

After being fired Sunday at Indiana, Tom Allen (20) more tactfully requested that Hoosiers fans and administrators get on board. “The time has come to fully embrace [NIL] changes, and I pray that IU does just that.” Allen accepted a $15.5 million buyout upon his departure.

There is one easy place to find some NIL money: the bloated salaries of the coaches and their staff. Instead of complaining coaches trying to browbeat contributions out of people making a fraction as much as they do, maybe they should pony up themselves. Or go out and fundraise yourself. Pleading institutional poverty while personally raking in millions is insulting.