Before Halloween arrives, Mark Stoops's Kentucky team is slated to face all three of the SEC's College Football Playoff participants from last year, two more programs who contend they should have been in and, of course, a pair of MAC squads.
Stoops says he's embracing the challenge and (finally) has a Kentucky program on level financial footing in the conference that bills itself as college football's toughest legion.
Asked directly if Kentucky football is where it needs to be in this new revenue-sharing era of the House Settlement, Stoops didn't hesitate to answer.
"It is. It is," he said during a lengthy, nearly 45-minute press conference preceding the opening this week of preseason camp. "It excites me because I feel like for the first time -- well, I just feel like we're going to be in a position to hopefully be on equal playing ground with everybody, and that hasn't always happened.
"I'm not throwing any shade anywhere. It's true, right?"
Entering his 13th season at the helm of the Kentucky program and on the heels an eight-loss season, his worst campaign since Year 1, Stoops explained that the evolution of college football -- really, college athletics -- allows him to candidly discuss the finances of the sport.
"I mean, I don't have to feel funny talking about money anymore," said Stoops, whose program has lost 20 games since 2022. "That's just part of it, right? Part of all college sports. It's been a tough time, but I don't like talking about that because it feels like an excuse. It just is what it is.
"It's gone, but I do feel like as we move forward with the support of the administration, forever, but in particular as we have gone through this here this year and where we're going in the future, I really feel like we could be put in a position to be on really good ground. I haven't always felt that way, so that excites me."
Still, Kentucky has signed 52 players via the NCAA Transfer Portal across its last three classes; still, the Wildcats have receded in the SEC pecking order and last year's lone conference win came in a stunning upset at Ole Miss.
"I feel like as we move forward, these past two, three years have been rough," Stoops said. "I really feel like we're in a position the next two, three years to really be in a good position, so I feel good about it."
Voters at this month's SEC media days tabbed Kentucky 15th of 16 teams in preseason projections; the program will have a new quarterback, likely Zach Calzada, an Incarnate Word transfer by way of Auburn and Texas A&M; it is also dealing with the abrupt departure of Vince Marrow, formerly Stoops's longest-tenured assistant now the general manager of archrival Louisville.
And that schedule? Well, aside from having two MAC programs (Toledo, Eastern Michigan) for the third time in the past four seasons, the Wildcats have a Week 2 game against Ole Miss, close September at South Carolina and face 2024 CFP participants Georgia, Texas and Tennessee in a three-game stretch.
"You know, obviously, as I've mentioned throughout the offseason, it's fair to say after coming off a season where we were not very pleased," Stoops said, "failed to meet our expectations, our own expectations, and didn't play at the level that we wanted to, that we have to have a heightened sense of awareness, and we've got to just have a greater sense of urgency.
"Again, just attack those with urgency. We didn't want to just move past it. We had to look at everything, turn over every stone and make sure that we were doing things to the best of our ability."
Stoops held Monday's press conference, in part, because he has to have a medical procedure on his face Tuesday.
"I'm here to have this preseason media conference. I'll take all the questions you want, and then I got to get my face cut open (Tuesday)," said Stoops, with a career 67-73 ledger at Kentucky that includes a 4-4 mark in bowl games. "Then I get that face cut, and I'll still be around Friday, but I'll probably have sunglasses on. I didn't think it would be appropriate to have a media conference with my sunglasses on.
"I'm not Deion (Sanders, Stoops said with a laugh). He's the only one that can do that."