You’re implying Stoops is the problem with NIL. From what I understand, Stoops is the reason we have as much as we do. Apparently Stoops is very good friends with the football donors and has cultivated those relationships or we would be in much worse shape.
How long until the "Barnhart was forced to hire Pope" cries begin?
- Thread starter DrH. Lecter
- Start date
Sometimes I rewatch the 2007 Big Blue Madness just to laugh at how excited everyone was. We had no idea
Yeah. I think some people never recovered from the microwave fans comments and feel he isn’t in touch w the pulse of the fanbase, only the donor class. The doubter to that is the donor class keeps the lights on so you do have to cater to them…but it’s a balancing act of still throwing the peasants a bone here and there on the easy “real fan” stuff
I think there is a chance that some of that dissension was introduced by a certain very loud voice with a whole lot of influence who didn’t like Barnhart for personal reasons. That very same influential loud voice was close to Cal at that time as well and we all know how Cal felt about Barnhart. I’ve felt that way for a very long time.
Pope was my first choice.
Ask my wife and 17 yr old son.
They both ridiculed me.
Now I make sure to let them know about my superior intellectual on the regular.
After the intro press event, even they were sold.
Signed,
A single one.
Potentially not wrong on that with how the timelines line up. Mitch has his flaws such as being a little slow/overly cautious to adapt to the changing environment in college athletics at times, or imo a little too much emphasis on no revenue secondary sports and chasing the Directors Cup as I worry that will hurt us when we have to decide how the conference revenue split 25mil NIL money will be divided up compared to how the other major players in Basketball/Football allocate there’s.
But overall he’s a really solid AD that’s kept the university out of major scandal in a scandalous 10-15 years of college athletics w FBI investigations etc …..and maybe some of that “slow to embrace the changing college landscape” played in our favor to keep us relatively clean…so it isn’t a black and white “bad trait” as long as he eventually adapts to the above board stuff and I think he finally has now
Mitch made the right hire for sure. But he also botched the Gillispie hire, and it’s common knowledge Cal was not Mitch’s first choice. Cal wanted the job in 2007, and Sandy Bell/Mitch wouldn’t even look at him due to his UMass baggage/reputation. But we had dug such a hole with Tubby/BCG and we had to make a homerun hire. Had Mitch’s job not been on the line—and it absolutely was after the BCG debacle—I highly doubt Cal would have been the choice.
So yes. He deserves praise for the Pope hire. He got it absolutely right. But those who had concerns when Cal resigned were justified due to Mitch’s track record with MBB hires.
What did you see that none of the rest of us did?
How could you overlook the first obvious choice in Bobby Hurley?
Lol that was your takeaway? Stoops (and I must admit I’m not as happy atm) is without question near-peak level we could have expected at Kentucky, given the track record. Getting to just 50% hasn’t been done very often at all at the school and I’m saying we can just keep reality in perspective lol. I already see some of the comments in this thread and you can’t talk sense into some people. Lol
2 coaches, 2 buyouts totaling $90 million and the BCG debacle. The answer is NO.
Mitch has made coaching decisions that have made UK competitive in pretty much all sports. Now Football is the cash cow, basketball spends as much as it makes. The rest of the sports lose money but they are competitive in the conference which is what matters most to Mitch and UK.
Now he has been known to make some dumb azz decisions with contacts for a few goobers.
Stop it, you are depressing me.
It is sometimes hard to remember until you actually see the numbers just how bad we have been historically. Maybe it was just selective remembering because the pain was so bad.
I was thinking the same thing.
60-23-5 for the Bear.
Makes me feel a little better but not much.
Don’t forget Tubby, we got lucky on him leaving too.
Mitch didn’t get off to a flying start and his handling of the Joker fiasco was a PR disaster.
MDS, that’s the best they can do? I’ll get some tees made up.
Again, Gillispie was nationally regarded as a very desirable up-and-coming coach prior to his tenure at Kentucky. Nobody questioned it at the time, he was thought to be an excellent hire. Only later did it become clear that the job was too big for Billy.
And Barnhart certainly didn’t keep him around too long, two seasons and he was out the door.
To give the devils their due, Barnhart wasn’t faced with a Calipari/Stoops contract situation because BCG was too stupid to sign his original one, let alone a big increase (not that Mitch ever contemplated offering him one).
I have little doubt Barnhart considers the Gillispie hire the biggest mistake of his career.
Who gives a ****. Not everything has to be an argument. Hes the coach. He’s winning. If somebody’s mad at Barnhart, let em be mad.
