Mike Stoops close to joining UK’s staff; Steve Clinkscale adding new title, per report

Mark Stoops is getting close to adding another member to his staff, and it will reportedly be his brother, Mike Stoops.

According to FootballScoop, the hiring of Mike is close to being down, though it is not yet complete because it has to be approved by UK’s board of trustees to clear nepotism concerns.

Mike is known as a defensive backs coach, and it looks like he will share the secondary with Steve Clinkscale, who is expected to also be UK’s passing game coordinator moving forward. Perhaps that new title will come with a raise to keep Michigan State away, as the Spartans have reportedly looked into hiring Clinkscale, but he has apparently turned them down.

This is great news, as Clinkscale has helped UK land elite recruits from the state of Michigan, including five-star lineman Justin Rogers in the Class of 2020. Keeping Clinkscale and Vince Marrow was crucial for UK’s recruiting success and rise as a program, and it appears they’ll both remain in Lexington for the foreseeable future.

Mike was a defensive backs coach at both Oklahoma and Kansas State previously. He became a big name when he was the defensive coordinator for brother Bob Stoops at Oklahoma from 1999-03. He turned their success into the head coaching job at Arizona where he went 41-50 from 2004-2011.

After that, Mike returned to Oklahoma as the defensive backs coach but spent the 2019 season as an analyst at Alabama, but it looks like he will be in Lexington with his brother in 2020.