With Saturday's loss to Georgia, Mark Stoops has now won just one of his last 12 SEC contests and the Wildcats are sitting at 2-3 on the season.
Following a bye week coming up, Kentucky will face ranked Texas and Tennessee squads over a two weekend home stretch home with a schedule that also includes trips to Auburn, Vanderbilt and Louisville before the end of the season.
On Friday, a longtime Lexington-based reporter shared a rumor that Stoops had tried to get out of his contract at the end of last season.
Alan Cutler perked up the ears of many late in the week after sharing on a radio show that at the end of last season Stoops approached athletic director Mitch Barnhart and wanted to negotiate a buyout.
That move was ultimately rejected.
Since the end of last season when they finished 15th in the SEC, ranked ahead of only winless Mississippi State, Kentucky managed to sign a top 25 signing class (25th according to 247 Sports), and a top 10 portal class.
On the flip side, Stoops and Big Blue Nation have also watched former Wildcat offensive coordinator Liam Coen - who led the Kentucky offense during some of Stoops' most successful seasons at the helm - land an NFL head coaching job with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and also saw longtime right-hand man Vince Marrow leave for the GM position with rival Louisville.
After their loss at the hands of Kirby Smart and a talented Georgia squad last night (their 16th in a row in the series), Stoops said that the narrative he looked to get out after last season was "unequivocally, 100 percent false."
When asked about the accuracy of that report, Stoops couldn't help but chuckle a bit before opening his response with "I hate to give anything like that legs."
"I told you guys last year, you guys can write and say what you want about me, but I've told you, there is zero chance I'm walking away. There is no quit in me."
"So that is unequivocally, 100% false."
Stoops doubled down on that by saying that "anyone that says otherwise is lying."
The longest-tenured head coach in the SEC, Stoops is 69-76 overall with a 28-65 mark in SEC play.
He is currently making $8.6 million per year, plus incentives after signing an amended contract in November of 2022 with his deal set to run through June 2031.
To move on from Stoops, Kentucky would owe him 75% of the remaining salary on his contract, or about $38 million.