No discounts. No drastically reduced buyout.

Kentucky officials, including athletics director Mitch Barnhart, formally terminated Mark Stops merely a week ago.

They did so knowing that per Stoops’ bloated contract dictated a nearly $38-million buyout to the coach who at the time was the Southeastern Conference’s longest-tenured skipper after he had just completed his 13th year at the helm.

There will be no 14th year, but there will be plenty of compensation still flowing to Stoops, the 2018 SEC Coach of the Year.

Kentucky on Monday disclosed the official terms of Stoops’s buyout, and he will be paid a total of $37,687,500.

With Stoops’s official termination date Dec. 1, 2025, Kentucky now has … checks the calendar — eight more days to deliver Stoops his first separation payment of $3,937,500. 

Moving forward, Stoops will receive five additional payments in quarterly installments — beginning July 1, 2026, and ending Jan. 31, 2031.

Yes, Stoops per Kentucky’s agreed-upon terms will receive five more payments from Kentucky with a value of $6,750,000 per payment.

Stoops won 72 games at Kentucky; his buyout essentially gives him an additional $500,000 for each of those wins.

Kentucky developed into a much physically tougher team under Stoops and peaked when he guided the program to 24 wins from 2021-23.

But the Wildcats still have never appeared in the SEC Championship Game since its 1992 inception, and his final four Wildcats teams lost 24 SEC games.

In 2024, the SEC’s first as a 16-team league, Kentucky finished 15th with just one league win and finished this past season tied for No. 11 with a 2-6 league ledger.

Kentucky last week hired former Louisville quarterback and Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein as its new coach.

Stein is considered an offensive innovator with an entertaining style of play and considerable energy. Kentucky needs a boost in recruiting, particularly after Stoops saw his longest-tenured assistant — former tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow — bolt in the summer for rival Louisville in an off-the-field role as the Cardinals’s general manager.

Louisville brought an end to the Stoops era when it finished off the Widlcats, 41-0, in the regular-season finale for both teams. It marked one of Kentucky’s all-time worst losses in the annual Commonwealth rivalry clash.

Stein is continuing to fill out his inaugural staff. His debut as Kentucky’s head coach will come Sept. 5, 2026, at home against FCS program Youngstown State — the hometown university of Stoops.