While everybody wants to fire their underperforming head coach, it is all about finding a suitable replacement in the event a team decides to go in that direction. When it comes to the Wisconsin Badgers, Luke Fickell's buyout is far too punitive to realistically move on from right now. It has to be the only reason he still has a job because, quite frankly, he effectively quit on the team last week...
Of the handful of coaches who could realistically replace him, as well as the ones who would rather do anything but Jump Around with Wisconsin, Mark Stoops seems to occupy the middle part of that Venn diagram. He knows defense and can recruit. His problem is he does not know offense and he coaches in the SEC. Stoops has had it made in Kentucky for over a decade now, but that might end.
As far as him potentially walking away from Lexington, he has too much pride in him to ever do that.
"I'd hate to give anything like that legs. There's zero chance I'm walking away. There's no quit in me, so that's unequivocally 100 percent false. Anyone who tells you that is lying."
His buyout would be absurdly pricey, but Stoops is too busy focusing on the task at hand right now.
"I don't want to address that crap no more."
Kentucky would have to pay Stoops 75 percent of his remaining contract that runs through 2031.
Money has something to do with it, but not everything for Mark Stoops
The biggest reason why Stoops may not come to Madison to replace Fickell has something to do with money, but not everything... He may have other better options out there. Stoops could replace Kirk Ferentz at his alma mater of Iowa in the coming years. He had great success coordinating Florida State's defense previously. Heck, he is very close to a fellow SEC head coach in one Kirby Smart...
For as much of a perceived upgrade as Stoops would be over Glenn Schumann in Athens, do Wisconsin fans really want to pay Stoops Fickell money to become the Big Ten version of Kentucky? Do they want to be Imitation Iowa, who are the Imitation Steelers? In a way, Stoops would actually give this long Wisconsin program an identity. Despite bad quarterback play, he usually wins some games.
In truth, Wisconsin would have to buy Stoops out of his Kentucky deal, in addition to buying Fickell out of his Wisconsin deal to make this work. Do the Badgers boosters have some $90 million in cash lying around? See, this is the biggest problem with Fickell. People know that Stoops is a good head coach, based on the options he would have outside of Kentucky in the chance he were to be fired.
Whether it is Iowa, Florida State, Georgia or Wisconsin, Stoops has options. As far as Fickell is concerned, he will have to either be a Power Four coordinator, a Group of Five head coach, or take on an image rehabilitation project on either some juggernaut College Football Playoff contender's staff or try his luck as a quality control analyst in the NFL. His options outside of Wisconsin are not great.
Stoops may be an upgrade over Fickell for many reasons, but the chances of him coming are slim.