{"id":240655,"date":"2025-07-27T17:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T17:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/240655\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T17:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T17:29:10","slug":"a-surprising-message-from-kentucky-football-ahead-of-the-2025-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/240655\/","title":{"rendered":"A Surprising Message from Kentucky Football Ahead of the 2025 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finding the right message to inspire the masses is difficult following a disappointing season. That was the task for Mark Stoops<\/a> and the Kentucky football program at SEC Media Days. More than a week later, I\u2019m still perplexed by what transpired in Atlanta. <\/p>\n

Ahead of their stop in Atlanta, we expected culture to be a primary talking point. Kentucky let go of the rope in the second half of the season. Instilling tenacity and resolve into the program felt like low-hanging fruit to lean into ahead of the 2025 campaign. Jordan Lovett<\/a> was first up to the mic and spoke candidly about culture changes within the program. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to change the culture, especially with a whole bunch of new guys coming in. So far we\u2019ve bonded great together,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cEvery Wednesday, we do this thing called 4 for 40. A guest speaker comes in and talks about life outside of football, and on the field, just how we can be better people, like in life. So I feel like that\u2019s been going pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay, that sounds good. Next up, Alex Afari<\/a> shared a similar sentiment. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like everybody\u2019s buying in,\u201d said Alex Afari. \u201cYou can feel it in the whole facility. Everybody\u2019s bought into our culture, because last year was not standard at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what you need to hear from a football program that is bringing in 50 new players. Much of the focus this offseason has centered around team-building, yet according to others, it isn\u2019t entirely about changing the culture.<\/p>\n

Josh Kattus<\/a> was the final player to speak with the media. Instead of sharing a similar, albeit more polished message, his response went in the complete opposite direction. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anything changed. We still have the same four core values,\u201d said the Kentucky tight end. \u201cI think there\u2019s maybe a shift in urgency after last season, but same culture, same mindset, we just got to make sure that we\u2019re more intentional about it this season.\u201d <\/p>\n

So, nothing changed? It\u2019s not entirely nothing. <\/p>\n

As Mark Stoops noted for the umpteenth time, the coaching staff broke down everything that went wrong and created a plan of action to solve those problems. But in the Kentucky head coach\u2019s eyes, that\u2019s also the case after good seasons. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s fair for me to address last year, but not dwell on it. Anytime you have a season like that, you better take a good look at yourself. Certainly, we evaluated everything within the program, as we always do, because if you\u2019re coming off a really good season, you have to make sure you\u2019re capitalizing on the things you\u2019re doing well, and maybe continue to exploit those things and get better in areas where you fall short, try to get better,\u201d he said<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s really no different. I\u2019m okay talking about it, but I don\u2019t want to dwell on it, because again, I\u2019ve stood here before two times after 10-win seasons, which didn\u2019t happen a lot around here, and all I was worried about was the next season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Stoops reiterated those four core values in the Main Room \u2014 attitude, toughness, discipline and
pride \u2014 as something Kentucky needs to \u201clean back into\u201d to be successful. <\/p>\n

Allow me to reiterate that messaging is hard after a 4-8 campaign. However, \u201cnothing has changed\u201d is a surprising message to deliver to Big Blue Nation. If you put the pieces together, what they\u2019re essentially spelling out is that players were the problem. Adding 50 new players is the big change that will fix this program. <\/p>\n

Mark Stoops wants the Kentucky football program to return to its hard-nosed identity, one that it got away from in the NIL era when the Wildcats got a poor rate of return from their star players. For this to work, the new guys must buy into those four core values and consistently deliver results on Saturdays. Allow me to borrow another commonly used line from Mark Stoops: \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finding the right message to inspire the masses is difficult following a disappointing season. That was the task…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[40445,7,42161,42162],"class_list":{"0":"post-240655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-alex-afari-22-lakota-west","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jordan-lovett-21-north-hardin","11":"tag-josh-kattus-22-archbishop-moeller"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114926385024198052","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}