The School Must Also Vacate Wins
Media days is usually a time to look forward to the upcoming season. Head coach Mark Stoops and the coaching staff talk about their current roster and why fans should be excited for 2024. Unfortunately for the Big Blue Nation, a Friday news release left a black cloud over the program. The NCAA announced Level II violations for the football program. Let’s give you a timeline and break it all down as Kentucky receives NCAA probation.
How It Happened
In a release from the NCAA, the organization says from the Spring of 2021 to March of 2022, 11 players received payment from UK Health Care for hours they did not work. The NCAA says eight of the student-athletes went on to compete while ineligible.
A very important note states the following; the NCAA enforcement staff and school agreed no staff member in the athletics department knew or reasonably should have known about the payment for work not performed. Thus, the football program violations did not provide additional support for the agreed-upon failure-to-monitor violation.
Kentucky self-reported the violations in September 2022. At the time Stoops said several players were held out of game action due to an undisclosed off-the-field incident. The specific players were never named. However, Chris Rodriguez sat out the first four games of 2022 while Jordan Wright didn’t play in the season opener. Rodriguez played in all 13 games of the 2021 season rushing for 1,379 yards.
Wiping Out A Great Year
If you follow the timeline, all of the wins from the 10-3 season from 2021 will be vacated. Of course that includes the Citrus Bowl thriller over Iowa. That season marked only the second time since 1977 UK had won 10 games in a year. The other came in 2018. As stated earlier the Cats receive a two-year probation. However, that does NOT include a bowl ban.
As we continue with the news that Kentucky receives NCAA probation let’s look at how the school responded.
Comments From The University
After the sanctions were announced athletics director Mitch Barnhart released a statement.
“For over a couple decades, we have worked really hard to ensure our compliance and our integrity was at the highest level,” Barnhart said. “In this case, our processes worked. Our compliance office uncovered both of these violations and worked through over the last three years trying to find a way through to a resolution which we have now received.”
School president Eli Capilouto said in an email to the university, “We respect the findings,” “There is a process. We participated in it. We accept the final resolution, and we are moving forward. However, it is important to underscore that the NCAA strongly affirms the rigor of our rules compliance and reporting systems within athletics with respect to the football program.”
Final Thoughts
Two years probation is obviously not good but it certainly could have been worse. The lack of a bowl ban is huge, especially for a school that’s been a record eight straight. When the school found out about the issue, they reported it. That’s always big in the NCAA’s eyes. As a result, they avoided the “failure to monitor” which always brings much stiffer penalties.
Again Kentucky receives NCAA Probation for two years due to violations pertaining to players being paid for jobs they didn’t do. Soon we’ll get back to previewing the upcoming season here at Last Word On College Football with a look at the running backs.
