Mark Stoops comments on Kentucky football probation, vacated 2021 wins for first time
The 2022 Citrus Bowl trophy has been removed from the display case in Kentucky football’s practice facility.
That trophy, which celebrated a win over Iowa, was the most visible casualty of the the program’s two-year probation announced last week.
“You’re disappointed because people did a lot of hard work to get to that place,” UK coach Mark Stoops said after Saturday’s preseason scrimmage in his first comments to reporters since the NCAA announced the penalties for Level II rules violations in the program.
In a negotiated resolution between UK and the NCAA, the football program was placed on two years of probation resulting from at least 11 players being paid for hours they did not actually work in patient transport jobs at the university hospital between the spring of 2021 and March 2022. UK was not assessed a postseason ban or any scholarship reductions, but the school agreed to vacate all 10 wins, including the Citrus Bowl victory, from the 2021 season because eight of the involved players participated while ineligible.
Neither UK nor the NCAA found any evidence that Stoops or any other coach knew about the inaccurate time cards or should have reasonably known about the rules violations.
Still, the 10 wins vacated from the 2021 season have to be reflected in Stoops’ coaching record, dropping him from 73-65 to 63-65.
“Obviously, three years ago to now, things have changed dramatically,” Stoops said, referring to rule changes that now allow players to profit off their name, image and likeness. “Still doesn’t make it OK.”
Per the terms of UK’s probation, the school must remove all references to the vacated victories from displays in public areas and university publications like the media guide. Individual records from the ineligible players must also be adjusted to reflect the vacated games.
The 2021 season was just UK’s second 10-win season since 1977. Both of those 10-win seasons came under Stoops’ leadership.
Stoops said he had been asked by the NCAA not to comment on the penalties, deferring instead to statements issued by UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart and president Eli Capilouto.
But he could not stop himself from getting at least one more comment in about the juxtaposition of vacating games from the 2021 season for players being paid for hours they did not work while he now coaches in a landscape where NIL collectives are allowed to pay athletes large sums of money and prepares for the advent of university revenue sharing with athletes coming in 2025.
“We work tirelessly to educate our kids and make sure they’re doing things right,”Stoops said. “… We try to do the best at it we can. I know the compliance in general at this university is very diligent. So, again, we work at it. We’re not perfect.
“Certainly in today’s world we wouldn’t be having these conversations. You can just flat give it to them. I shouldn’t say that. You’ve got to send a tweet to get a million dollars, if you call that work. Little different.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2024 at 3:59 PM.