A few weeks back, when I went to Starkville, Mississippi to cover Mississippi State-Kentucky, I did have an inkling I’d be covering one of Zach Arnett’s final games as the Bulldogs’ head coach.
A week later, when I covered the Bulldogs’ Veterans Day game at College Station, Texas against Texas A&M, I was sure that was the last time I’d seen Arnett coach the Bulldogs – and I was right. Wound up being not only the last time Arnett coached MSU, but also the last time Jimbo Fisher coached the A&M, as well.
Turns out, I brought the voodoo to Kentucky fans, too, and didn’t even know it.
Saturday night, as I write this, media outlet after media outlet, including Sports Illustrated (si.com) the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, and many others, are all reporting that Texas A&M Athletic Director Ross Bjork has his man, that the Aggies are about to hire Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops as their new head coach.
The Eagle, the Bryan-College Station newspaper of record, is reporting that’s who A&M is targeting (Reports: Texas A&M targets Kentucky’s Mark Stoops as next football coach (theeagle.com)
During the length of time that I started writing this story and the time it took me to get to this paragraph – oh, about five minutes – si.com changed its headline and it now reads, “Report: Kentucky’s Mark Stoops is top candidate for Texas A&M vacancy.”
That’s a whale of a difference from “hired.”
It seems no one wants to report it’s official, which could mean there’s doubt.
Now, I’m no Doubting Thomas (that’s a Biblical reference for you heathens out there; it refers to when Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead after his crucifixion), but until I see that the Aggies have indeed made a hire, I won’t believe it.
And as much as I appreciate what Stoops has done at Kentucky (73-64, with five straight wins over in-state rival Louisville after Saturday, and made UK football at least a viable SEC team, a far cry from what it was before him), there may be a lot of Aggie fans that aren’t going to be on board with the fact that a coach with a 73-64 record is much better than the coach they dismissed – who had a national championship in his pocket at Florida State, a pedigree of coaching with Nick Saban and was known as a good recruiter.
Stoops is not a bad choice, to be sure. But he’s not a “wow” choice, like some of the names that had been mentioned, like Oregon’s Dan Lanning, certainly not like Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, Colorado’s Deion Sanders (who likely wasn’t leaving, anyway), or ridiculous candidates like Georgia’s Kirby Smart or Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell.
If it is Mark Stoops, Bjork hit a solid double. But he didn’t hit a home run.
