On Friday, August 2, 2024, Eli Capilouto, the president of the University of Kentucky, and Mitch Barnhart, the athletics director, talk about the football and swimming programs’ NCAA probation and penalties BY KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY Knowing what we now know, the infractions that put Kentucky football on two years of probation with the NCAA and resulted in the Wildcats having to forfeit all ten of their wins from their 10-3 season in 2021 are not serious enough to put Mark Stoops or Mitch Barnhart’s jobs in jeopardy.
However, UK’s first major NCAA rule breaches in 22 years have marred the legacy of Kentucky’s longstanding athletics director and the most successful football coach in the Wildcats. The NCAA noted that UK had “at least 11 football student-athletes receiving payment for work not performed between spring 2021 and March 2022” in an agreement negotiated with the university that was made public on Friday.
The NCAA declared that the decision rendered those 11 athletes, eight of whom participated in 2021, ineligible retroactively. Due to the ineligible players, Kentucky was forced to forfeit one of its greatest football seasons ever.
For Kentucky fans, that has to be a bitter weed.
The University of Kentucky’s Mark Stoops (left) and Mitch Barnhart (right) reputations are somewhat diminished as a result of UK having to forfeit all 10 of their victories in the 2021 football season because it used players who the NCAA had later determined to be ineligible. The University of Kentucky’s Mark Stoops (left) and Mitch Barnhart (right) reputations are somewhat diminished as a result of UK having to forfeit all 10 of their victories in the 2021 football season because it used players who the NCAA had later determined to be ineligible.
UK President Eli Capilouto and AD Mitch Barnhart's statements on the NCAA joint resolution on violations in the football and swimming programs
"The NCAA is announcing a resolution to two violations that we uncovered, we reported, and fully cooperated in their investigation." pic.twitter.com/pMFBDMKy48
— Tristan Pharis (@TristanUda) August 2, 2024
Barnhart is having a difficult 2024 despite UK baseball’s breakthrough to the Men’s College World Series and the $82 million renovations that are transforming the dilapidated Memorial Coliseum into something sleek and contemporary. The University of Kentucky’s athletics department has now caused embarrassing publicity for the school twice in as many months due to football probation and the much more serious sexual harassment claims made against a former UK swim coach in a lawsuit filed in April by two former members of the Kentucky swim team.
Kentucky has vacated all 10 wins from the 2021 season due to NCAA violations. Cats will also be placed on probation for the next two seasons.
LATEST: https://t.co/KIuSPTesmB pic.twitter.com/MmiuYoMArl
— Adam Luckett (@AdamLuckettKSR) August 2, 2024
The NCAA on Friday cited the Kentucky swimming and diving department, which was coached by its former staff, for breaking regulations on the amount of allowed practice time in addition to the football infractions. About twenty-two years ago, when Barnhart was appointed by former UK President Lee T. Todd, UK athletics was trying to get back on track following devastating sanctions brought on by NCAA irregularities in the Wildcats football program during Hal Mumme’s coaching tenure.
Since then, a major responsibility of Barnhart’s has been to steer clear of the negative press that Kentucky has experienced over the last four months as a result of the swimming controversy and, more recently, football probation. Barnhart deserves praise for Kentucky’s 22-year streak of no major NCAA infractions during his leadership. That is not a small matter for UK, which was previously penalized by the NCAA for rules infractions in 1953, 1964, 1976, 1988, 1989, and 2002. But just as the football controversy of the Mumme era marred C.M. Newton’s reputation at the end of his tenure as UK AD, so too are the current football and swimming issues likely to taint Barnhart’s Kentucky record.
BREAKING:
The University of Kentucky has been placed on two years of probation as a result of NCAA Investigations into the UK Football and Swimming programs.
At least 11 football players received payment for work not performed between 2021 and 2022. Eight went onto compete…
— Tristan Pharis (@TristanUda) August 2, 2024
Both Barnhart and Eli Capilouto, the president of the University of Kentucky, highlighted in video statements provided by UK that it was UK that discovered and reported the violations to the NCAA, which were made public on Friday. Capilouto stated: “We discovered. We filed a report. We gave the inquiry our whole cooperation. We honor the procedure. We honor the choice. “We have worked really hard to ensure that our compliance and our integrity (were) at the highest level,” stated Barnhart. “We have done this for over a couple of decades.” Here, our procedures were successful. Over the past three years, our compliance office has investigated and resolved both of these infractions.
One of the pillars is destroyed if one of those seasons is discredited. After the second of those 10-win seasons—two of just four seasons with ten or more wins in Wildcats football history—UK hired Stoops to a lucrative contract that will bring in $9.013 million by 2024 for the coach. Kentucky players were purportedly profiting from “no-show” jobs that were with UK HealthCare. The NCAA and the University of Kentucky “agreed that no staff member in the athletics department knew or reasonably should have known about the payment for work not performed,” according to a news release from the NCAA.
I find it hard to believe that 11 football players independently figured out how to get into the UK HealthCare system and land well-paying but non-work-related positions. I don’t think Stoops personally oversees each employment initiative that uses football players from the United Kingdom. aboard the other hand, the captain is accountable for all that happens aboard his ship. It did not look good when football players took money out of the university’s health care system without contributing to it. Like Barnhart, Stoops is currently going through a difficult period in his public relations career.
At least some supporters in the UK are still upset with Stoops for his rumored pursuit of Texas A&M’s head coaching position following the 2023 regular season. After Kentucky fumbled the ball over four times in the fourth quarter of the previous year’s Gator Bowl, a 21-10 Cats lead turned into a 38-35 loss to Clemson, the atmosphere did not get much better. Due to rules infractions, the NCAA has now suspended Steveops from his second of two 10-win seasons as head coach of Kentucky. For all of these reasons, neither Barnhart nor Stoops, nor the University of Kentucky, had a nice day on Friday.
