These are the coaches that Michigan State needs to look at first

Here is the coach who should be the number one target for the Spartans to fill their head coaching vacancy.

Mark Stoops began as an assistant coach at South Florida before going to Wyoming where he coached defensive backs at both schools. He then in 2000 became a co-defensive coordinator at Houston. He then coached defensive backs at Miami (FL) and then became a defensive coordinator at both Arizona and Florida State before he became the head coach of Kentucky in 2013 and has remained the head coach of the Wildcats ever since. Now the question is, would Stoops leave Kentucky for Michigan?

According to a report published by USA TODAY Sports, Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops ranks as the eighth-highest-paid college football coach in the nation with a yearly salary of $9,013,600. So why would Stoops even consider leaving Kentucky then? Here are a few reasons why he might.

Stoops’ response to Wildcat’s head basketball coach John Calipari and writers who cover the Kentucky basketball program suggests that maybe Stoops may want to go to a school like Michigan State where their basketball coach Tom Izzo, 100% supports the football program.

In comparison to Kentucky athletics, Izzo instead of having a new basketball faculty helped raise funds from people like former MSU basketball player and current owner of the Phoenix Sun Matt Ishbia who donated 32 million, and two other donors who contributed 10 million to build a $78 million football facility that is actually named the Tom Izzo Football Building.

Another reason is being able to coach in the Big Ten in comparison to coaching in the SEC. Even though the Big Ten conference will be more competitive with the additions of Oregon, USC, Washington, and UCLA in 2024, the SEC will also become more difficult and competitive from top to bottom with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma. Stoop’s best record in SEC play is 5-3 which happened twice in 2021 and 2018. He may be open to coaching in the Big Ten where he may be able to win the conference in comparison to the SEC where he and his team is in the same division as back-to-back national champions Georgia.

The final reason is simply that if Stoops wants a potentially better opportunity and pathway to the college football playoffs that doesn’t involve playing Georgia and Alabama each season, maybe the Big Ten gives him a better chance of leading a team such as Michigan State to the college football playoffs. The Spartans went to the college football playoffs before under Mark Dantonio so it has been done and the most prestigious bowl game that Kentucky has gone to under Stoops is the Citrus Bowl. He may want to be at a school like Michigan State which he may believe will allow him to better reach the goal of taking his team to the college football playoffs.

Would MSU fans want Stoops? Whether they know it or not, yes. On social media and the message boards and even rumors of big-time donors being all in on bringing Urban Meyer to East Lansing, Stoops is the candidate that the athletic director, the board of trustees, and the top financial donors can all get behind.

Stoops is 5-3 in bowl games having won five out of his last six bowl games and his only losing season since 2015 was in 2020. He and his team have won at minimum seven games every season but one since the 2016 season. His consistency and how he has built the Kentucky football program are similar to how Mark Dantonio built up the Michigan State football program.

He was named the SEC Coach of the Year 2018 and according to ESPN National Recruiting Director Tom Luginbill, “I think Mark Stoops is the best program builder in all of college football right now.”

Realistic odds of landing Mark Stoops? Getting Stoops to leave Kentucky to become the head coach of Michigan State would be a difficult task. He is well compensated at Kentucky, he could have left after a successful 2021 season but chose to stay at Kentucky, proving he is loyal to the program, and he seems by all accounts to be happy being the head coach of the Wildcats. The fans of the Wildcats seem to love him and the only time a small fraction of the fanbase became frustrated with him was when Kentucky lost at home to Vanderbilt last season.

He may very well tell Michigan State flat-out that he has no interest in leaving Kentucky, but the search committee needs to reach out and gauge his interest if he would be interested in becoming the next head coach of the Spartans. The odds of him becoming the next coach is somewhat of a mystery and only time will tell if he is interested in possibly becoming the next head coach of Michigan State.