Next UK AD needs to see new college sports landscape as opportunity, not problem
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Next UK AD must view new college sports landscape as opportunity
- Consider continuity, proven ADs, or pros/entertainment executives
- Leader must embrace player empowerment and create athlete financial opportunities
Although there are some blemishes on the record, Mitch Barnhart will enter retirement as the most successful athletic director in University of Kentucky history.
When former UK president Lee T. Todd Jr. hired Barnhart in 2002, the new AD was given two primary tasks: 1.) Keep Kentucky athletics free from the major NCAA scandals that had long plagued UK; 2.) Build Kentucky into an SEC-worthy, all-around athletic department.
Though Kentucky vacated a 10-win football season from 2021 due to NCAA rules violations, the Barnhart era was otherwise mostly free of major NCAA compliance issues. (It is also true that college sports concepts of amateurism changed in such a way during his tenure that what were once rules violations became standard operating procedures.)
Where Barnhart excelled was in turning UK into a genuine, high-level Southeastern Conference-level athletic department.
Under Barnhart, who announced Tuesday he will be retiring as AD, Kentucky was consistently good in more sports than it had ever been before.
Eight straight football bowl games (2016 through 2023); four men’s basketball Final Fours (2011, 2012, 1014, 2015) and the 2012 NCAA title; trips to the baseball College World Series (2024) and the softball Women’s College World Series (2014); two appearances in the women’s volleyball Final Four (2020 and 2025), including the 2020 NCAA championship; a men’s tennis NCAA Tournament runner-up finish (2022); an outdoor women’s track & field NCAA runner-up finish (2015); and four rifle national titles (2011, 2018, 2021, 2022) are some of the proof of Barnhart’s success.
Like any athletic director who serves 24 years, Barnhart had some misfires.
Given the prestige of Kentucky men’s basketball, the ill-fated Billy Gillespie hire stands as the worst coaching decision in UK sports history. It was a testament to Todd’s belief in Barnhart that the AD survived making such a hire in his university’s marquee sport.
Meanwhile, Joker Phillips (football) and Kyra Elzy (women’s basketball) were internal promotions into prominent head coaching positions that didn’t pan out.
One need only gauge the venom directed toward Barnhart on many of the UK sports-centric Internet message boards to see that the Kentucky AD did not always seem able to communicate well with all segments of his school’s fan base.
In latter years, as the college sports landscape was roiled by dramatic changes in both player empowerment and compensation, Barnhart was seen, whether entirely fairly or not, as more reactive than bold in embracing the changes.
Still, on balance, Barnhart is leaving a much more well-rounded UK athletic department than the one he inherited and deserves credit for that.
So what should UK be looking for in its next athletic director?
From here, it seems that University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto and his brain trust have three pathways they could follow in choosing the next UK AD.
Kentucky deputy athletic director Marc Hill has been widely thought to be Barnhart’s preferred replacement. It will be interesting to see if UK sees this as a time for a “continuity hire” and, if not, whether Hill can present a distinct vision for a new direction for Kentucky sports.
If the UK looks to the outside, the “Barnhart AD tree” is one of the most impressive in NCAA Division I athletics.
The sitting athletic directors at Alabama (Greg Byrne), Auburn (John Cohen), DePaul (DeWayne Peevy), Florida (Scott Stricklin), Minnesota (Mark Coyle), Oregon (Rob Mullens) and Wichita State (Kevin Saal) all worked at various times for Barnhart at Kentucky.
Some on that list now hold AD jobs considered more attractive than UK. Others lack football experience and/or have not yet achieved enough in their current positions to merit an SEC AD job.
Still, it will be interesting to see if Kentucky makes a play for a sitting power-conference AD with previous ties to the university.
The third option would be the most daring.
That would be to look outside college sports for an executive with, say, professional sports or even entertainment industry experience.
As Kentucky has transitioned its athletic department into an LLC and is moving to create entertainment districts near Kroger Field and Memorial Coliseum, the skills required to manage what the UK athletic department is morphing into may require a different background than what has been traditional.
Whatever path Capilouto and UK take, the university’s next athletic director needs to be someone comfortable with a college sports world of player empowerment and athlete compensation.
Given the uncertainties of the current moment, the college sports future is impossible to predict. But the schools that thrive in the coming era are likely to be those that send the message that they are looking for ways to create financial opportunities for their athletes, not the schools seen as trying to restrict those chances.
In college sports, this is a time to be bold. We’ll see if the University of Kentucky can meet the moment.
This story was originally published March 3, 2026 at 2:41 PM.
