He's the best at writing contracts for underachieving coaches that are impossible to get out of with hilarious buyouts.
When will Mitch Barnhart be held accountable?
- Thread starter Basil Cat
- Start date
By hook or by crook he was able to move us out of the Calipari failed tenue at no cost.
At any rate hind sight is 2020. When Stoops wins 10 games Mitch looks like a genius then he puts together back to back 7 win season all of a sudden he's an idiot. It's sort of like betting on a can't miss odds on favorite horse and then when he fails to hit the board people say why the heck did you bet on that nag? Sort of the same thing with Calipari that was the golden boy here for awhile.
See I don’t think the last contract did anything and was just a waste. Win 7 or 8 or 10. He was already at a level where he can’t leave for just another job. And if a bigger school ever really wanted him we were not stopping them and still aren’t. Mitch had just given a raise and extension and then go duplicate it again after a mediocre year. Take that money and make it part of the recruiting budget instead and you end up with one of the top 3 recruiting budgets along with UT and UGA. That makes the whole program stronger for whomever coaches not just stoops pocket book and he can’t complain about an infusion of $ into recruiting. It was flat out just stupid to make that last extension. Others were fine or at worst debatable…the last extension was panic for no reason.
But it makes it impossible to get out of without severely crippling the program. So he's got that going for us.
This. I don't even care the situation happened. I care our ad sold us out by self reporting it and rolling over by agreeing.
Meh he did better which isn't saying much. Dont forget brooks left because Mitch kept promising things that never happened, even basics like a recruiting room instead of chairs in the corner.
Plus pretty much everything stoops got came only when he was in serious consideration for other jobs. My god they were flying public until this last extension.
So ya for football hes better than the worst but there is a lot of room left to grow.
Dan Berezowitz was chief of staff at the time for Kentucky football. He set up the jobs so he was responsible. Someone in the place of employment was not reporting the players absence from the workplace. Kentucky's on field coaches are allowed minimal contact with players over the summer so they did not know. The NCAA found Stoops and his coaches did not know. As investigations go, this was an easy one. If Kentucky's coaches knew, the NCAA would have lowered the boom and Kentucky football would be on probation for 100 years. The clue is that Kentucky's swim team was also doing it. If Stoops or Marrow was behind it, why the swim team too? No. And if Barnhart was behind it, why only football and swimming? More athletes from more teams would have been caught. This was a small scheme, probably not new and probably a collusion with someone at the med center. The work study program has always had a flock of students working at the med center. I used to work at the med center and those people do not have any time to keep track of work study students, swimmers, or football players.
How many lifelines does mitch have at UK
Gillespie hire
Joker Phillips hire
Cal lifelong contract and the past 7 years of being irrelevant
Hates nil atmosphere
UK is now a gymnastics volleyball and baseball school
football has gotten better but very inconsistent seems like we have hit our ceiling
UK made the elite 8 in 2017 and 2019 and had a solid shot at at least that in 2020 when they won the sec by 3 games. If those seasons constitute irrelevance then Pope is n a tough spot. Your basically saying unless we make final fours UK is irrelevant.
Last 4 seasons were dog crap overall but stop with the hyperbole.
Mitch definitely has his problems for sure though. No argument there.
Did UK need resources for track and whatever else when barnhart arrived? Yes. Did those type of things need to take priority over keeping the primary ncaa sport in the country funded as well as they could? No. But that’s what happened his first decade plus at the school. And he still does it but football isn’t in dire shape anymore and is ‘adequately’ funded but certainly could be more. Its competitive. We just aren’t doing all we can in a sport where we play others doing all they can.
And I don’t care about the situation either. Only that his slow moving pace and essence is justified as ‘doing things the right way’ and you just can’t get punishments for whatever reason without also getting the benefit of pushing some envelopes, which he does not do.
Last edited:
He didn't generate that money. Sec network fell into his lap and stoops still had to tie basic stuff to contract extensions. Until very recently they had to share a practice facility.
Those are the only two reasons uk football got anything. Not because he did it. Its crazy to think until very recently football had to share that facility and recruiters were flying commercial.
That doesn't even touch on nil which his two major coaches complained about having no help. Its absurd.
Amen, Grump!!
Barnhart would have flung his body into the path of the 5.56, absorbing it with his bullet-proof Izod, (bullet lodging in the top button), and Trump would have a full right ear!!
I don't know of anyone else that has a football only indoor facility, they very well could but UGA doesn't. Baseball, softball and track all use it, football has priority but not a single purpose facility.
Thanks for more perspective. Iirc there was the additional rub this shared one was not a full field either because of the track.
To solve it, they built track its own brand new facility. Should've been vice versa. That just goes hand in hand with his approach which is absolutely phenomenal attention to non revenue sports.
You shouldn't have the most successful football coach in your history (when you account for longevity) constantly tying contract extensions with things he shouldn't have to fight so hard to get. Until this last extension they were flying commercial. Basketball too was told no in recent years and got passed up facility wise while a women's renovation went triple budget. I guess we'll see now if that was their personal clash or not.
Again, phenomenal for non revenue. Ok for revenue especially football since football used to get completely ignored but football should eat first and basketball not far behind because thats a special beast here. Then add in he does nothing to help football or basketball. I guess he at least no longer fights against it but the ad office has to be more supportive. You cant just leave it all up to the coaches who also have to coach while you're jumping in the water polo pool with the ladies.
Tldr hes great if you're a non revenue fan/participant but otherwise we could do much better.
I don't disagree with anything you said, especially the upgrades being tied to contract extensions.
I don't know how things have worked at UK in the past, but from an outsiders perspective when ADMB was hired basketball ruled at UK, would that be correct? And that would be from the power brokers at UK, so if he wanted to stay employed MB couldn't start funneling large sums to football. UGA has always been fairly profitable, but ex school president would pull millions yearly from athletics to fund his pet projects. I don't guess that is a huge negative but a little frustrating. Current president is pro athletics and allows AD to fund things he sees needed. So dispersing funds isn't entirely an ADMB decision, he has people he has to answer to. It's just tough to get things done when you have a school president that isn't fully on board. I have no clue if that is an issue at UK, just a possibility of why things don't get done as quick as people want.
I like where our football program has been the last 3-5 years, but our other programs aren't where they need to be. UK football isn't where everyone wants, it's close, but I can't think of any other program that isn't top notch. One to be proud of.
But with the way college athletics are heading I am not sure theses facility races are over. When athletes become employees, I am afraid all the fundraising is going into player salaries instead of gamerooms.
All great points and perspective.
From my memory, mb was hired because of booster desire to improve football and came with a background from Oregon and a pitch to make it happen. He did indeed secure early earmarked donations to improve things but they were so far behind.
At some point, i guess around the time of absurd sec tv money, it seemed mitch almost quit the fundraising and kept going to the same 2 or 3 sources for money, none of which are different immortal. During his laziness, it sure seems stoops has the way better relationship with the one or two remaining big money donors as both stoops and cal publicly talk about how they basically have to do it on their own. Cal did himself no favors, and thats another long story, but both revenue positive programs have coaches doing the bulk of the fundraising with seemingly little/no help.
We have some pretty dumb fans if that’s the case. We wonder why other fanbases in the conference laugh at us.
Let's be fair about the fundraising. A booster ready to drop 5m in the till wants his Pic taken with the football coach. I have seen UGA's AD multiple times, but if I had to pick him out of a group of 5 with similar looks I would probably get it wrong. But I can spot Kirby and pick him out of a lineup, hard to miss that haircut and stomach. I would have zero chance of picking out ADMB, but I could pick CMS out of a lineup. I think that is pretty common. So like it or not, which CMS clearly doesn't, fundraising is going to become a bigger reponsibility. I don't mean to come off as arguing with you, just tossing ideas and opinions out for discussion.
The swim team violations have nothing to do with the football "pay for no work". Their violations were only for exceeding time for practice and ignoring those limits.
For sure but the ad and his people should be the ones at least helping build the relationship and the coach just do photo ops or dinner. At uk, football and basketball have to do it all and way more of it than they should.
The only thing that seemed to get Mitch in gear for a sec was making sure he had enough money get his target when cal left.
If it had been "booster desire", MB wouldn't have even got an interview. President and BOT were under pressure to break up the Good ole boy network around UK athletics. Larry Ivy had been a poor administrator and CM Newton, who the national media had praised as being the perfect person to clean up the basketball mess, was not quite as perfect as the media made him out to be. Plus, the AD role was evolving into something completely different from what it had been in the 1980's and before. An AD at nearly every school had always been a favorite son or the most popular coach. Cliff Hagan here, Alabama had the Bear as AD while he was coach, etc. pretty much just a fundraiser who could get fans and boosters to give money by telling them war stories.
Florida really changed all that with Jeremy Foley in the '90's when the AD became a CEO running all the aspects of the athletic department and was a lot more business leader than a figurehead. MB was part of that new wave of AD's who had management experience and ties to the school became secondary.
l do think the AD or someone with some kind of title needs to be the ones finding the funds/donations, But the head coaches will need to be doing their share of handshaking and picture taking.
That move your AD pulled off getting rid of Cal and not costing a ton of cash was pretty good move. I know people wanted him gone right then, but saving that buyout was worth a couple weeks wait, imo.
I believe one thing we can agree on, college athletics will never be the same, and coaches, ADs and whoever else capable are just going to have to accept fundraising is part of their deal now if you want to be a big time program. Just look at OSU, Ryan Day made the same state CMS and Kirby made about needing NIL money and their fans have raised almost 25m for the 25 class, Tennessee is spending near that, might before signing day, and almost half that amount on a QB for 26 already, they are spending almost as much for an OT and they did Nico for 25 class. But they are so desperate to be relevant again they will do without to get there. Them and AU are outspending even ATM and Texas right now.
Similar threads
