Stoops is a competitive man.
He wants to do at least as much as his brother did, which is win a National Title, and might have concluded he cannot do it in the age of NIL at Kentucky, hence the A & M flirtation.
But even that drama was good. He’ll get to tell the recruits he spurned A & M and still let it be known somebody in College Station wanted him.
And Barnhart looks like a smart strategist: he may have nailed Stoops to UK until Ferentz retires at Iowa, simultaneously preserving a heightened relationship with three young men with damn good résumé’s in White, Coen and Sumrall.