You are a knowledgeable football fan. I frequently like and support your comments. It seems you and others are now making a case that UK football is not being supported, ostensibly because of some kind of historical neglect at UK that allegedly continues. That fits the "curse of the Bear" and the confirmation bias that is currently so popular on this board. You may be right about the small part of it that is related to state revenues. I can't really speak to that in terms of granularity like you can. It's an area of expertise for you so I accept that part of what you are saying even though it is educated speculation.
But support of UK athletics goes way, way beyond state revenues. Revenues for UK athletics are primarily derived from $billions in SEC profit sharing and TV network revenues, as well as paraphernalia and ticket revenues, corporate support, and other private donations. Just reviewing overriding financial facts.
President Todd hired Mitch Barnhart (a "football AD") to reconstruct UK's football program. At that time, back in 2002, UK football was on NCAA probation because of "lack of institutional control" and outrageous malfeasance by renegade boosters who had nearly unfettered control of our athletics department under Cliff Hagan, CM Newton, and Larry Ivey. After Newton resigned, the same boosters purchased a luxury vacation home for him in the Bahamas as a reward. This is based on published reports at the time and you can look them up if you want. The rules were different back then, and cheating was rampant. The NCAA nearly named UK as the 2nd school ever to receive its "death penalty", which would have put UK's athletics department out of business for 24 months. A 3 year set of sanctions had been imposed on UK football recruiting. That's what Barnhart inherited.
Although no one wanted the job, Barnhart managed to hire Rich Brooks, who rebuilt the roster and eventually took UK to a series of bowl games. When Brooks retired, he recommended his OC, Joker Phillips (former UK all SEC receiver) for the job. Barnhart made the mistake of accepting Brooks' recommendation in 2010, but corrected that mistake after the 2013 season by hiring Stoops to replace Phillips.
During Stoops' tenure, every UK football facility has been replaced or renovated to state of the art. It was reported in the last several days that UK is preparing to spend roughly another $40 million on Kroger Field although those funds ARE NOT BEING SHARED WITH OUR BASKETBALL PROGRAM.
Barnhart has overseen recovery of UK football from a sanctioned program one violation away from the "death penalty" to a program that wins difficult FL bowl games. It's true that Mark Stoops' performance has declined for the last several seasons. But that's a different subject from institutional support. UK's football facilities are top notch. UK's coaching staff payroll is at an all time high. UK's recruiting budget is at an all time high. The alleged lack of institutional support for football is a false narrative that does not exist.
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