Can't quite figure out why so many of our fans hate Mitch Barnhart. He got you (albeit with a forced hand) a guy to coach your basketball team that half of you think is beyond reproach and a football coach that has taken us places we have never been in my lifetime. All on our AD's watch. And he is awful?
To me it’s really simple. He’s guided our 2 bread and butter programs into an oblivion and without others forcing his hand, we’d be in a really bad spot. In a perfect world we’d have a Football AD, a Basketball AD, and Barnhart could control the rest.
Early on Calipari didn’t want to work with Barnhart and so Peevy took over. When Calipari was first hired Barnhart didn’t even want it. He stopped it in 2006. He made the worst hire in the history of UK athletics, Gillispie. Joker might be the worst head coach we’ve ever had in football, at least in recent memory. He was extremely slow to give football upgrades and Brooks basically retired because of it. He had more in him but the facility situation ended his term. On top of all of that, you’ve got the Calipari contract, probably the worst contract (at this time) in the history of Kentucky basketball. Just look at the contract, it’s a rubber stamp for Calipari to do nothing.
His inability to push the envelope and compete at the highest level is another concern. In college athletics you have to push the envelope. We’re lucky we’re even competitive with him. Calipari would have never been here if it were up to Barnhart. Stoops wouldn’t be here if it were up to Barnhart. People seem to forget Mitch wasn’t looking at Stoops. Stoops had to pretty much beg him to give it a shot. Stoops approached Barnhart.
Much of the good he’s personally done has more to do with modern SEC revenue streams than his own work.
When you get more into the details, he’s a fairly below average - mediocre AD. definitely not capable of making UK as good as it can be.
I could honestly keep going. Just look at the way he handled Calipari’s comments. He butchered that situation about as bad as you can. Look at what he’s doing to our football program with the NIL. If something doesn’t change there fast, Louisville is about to beat us regularly in football. That will happen within 3 years at this rate. We might even lose stoops. Barnhart has personal crusades (alcohol / NIL) that he thinks is his business to use UK to prove a point. The problem is it’s going to crush us down the road.
I don’t personally think Barnhart will be at UK Much longer if he doesn’t get out of the way. We can’t compete under his vision. We’re just currently living off of what we built before the NIL came to be.
I honestly can’t figure out why anyone thinks he’s a good AD. Anything you throw that’s positive either really doesn’t have much meaning, or can be disputed by details and facts (ex. He is not responsible for Calipari coming here).
I’m definitely ready for a new guy.
