[BlackcatAlum]

Rich Brooks done a lot for UK football! First of all he beat every team in the powerful SEC West with the exception of Bama. He had UK rated in the Top Ten at one point. Those 'Banjo Bowls" are important to building a football programs. The Bowl practice period is very important to player development. I honestly think that the major mistake that Brooks made was having the Joker on his staff. Joker's poor play calling kept Brooks from beating more SEC teams. What kept Brooks from moving UK to the upper class of the SEC was depth. Brooks at one point had the Nations longest nonconference winning streak. Go to Rivals and take a look at some of UK's recruiting classes, the 2002, 2003 and 2004 recruiting classes had a total of three 4 Star recruits Micah Jones, Andrea Woodson are two of the three the other one (Yancey Reynolds) never made it to UK. Of those 3 classes they were made up mostly of 2 Stars guys. IMO Stoops is on the right track, he is bringing in a higher level of talent.

Brooks was a great coach. What kept him from moving UK forward was the lack of a financial commitment from the administration. He couldn't competitively recruit against the likes of the rest of the SEC. If you want to win consistently, you have to be able to recruit. Now the administration is backing the football program. A big time investment has been made to upgrade Commonwealth Stadium to one of the nicest stadiums in the country. The program will finally have a recruiting room, that Brooks begged for.

I think Stoops will get the job done. This is a job that he wanted. I don't think he realized just how bad this job was until he got here, but with the way he and his staff are recruiting you can only be excited. I don't think any other staff could've come on and landed a recruiting class as good as this 2014 class is at the moment.

If your expectations are for more than 4 wins next year then you're crazy. I'm guessing 3-4 wins next season and hopefully a shot at a bowl in 2015. That's realistic expectations for this program.