University of Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart is speaking out about the last football season.
Barnhart sat down for an exclusive with Jon Hale from the Lexington Herald-Leader to discuss this past season and look ahead to this coming season.
The comments Barnhart made were… well… interesting, to say the least.
“… A one-year blip is not what I would call ‘not sustaining it.’ Now, if we go two or three more, a couple more years, and we’re still not back where we want to be, sure, then you have to have a conversation about, what are we trying to get to here? And how do we do that? But he’s absolutely engaged with our guys. Staff is over there, working hard at it, and we’ve got a good group of guys coming in.”
The “one-year blip” remark is interesting, because many fans in the Big Blue Nation have not been pleased with finishing 7-6 the prior two seasons, especially considering the increase in talent from recruiting and the transfer portal.
The program has not been the same since the 2021 season when the Kentucky Wildcats went 10-3. In 2022, Kentucky should’ve won at least 8-9 games. 2023 was another letdown, losing to Missouri at home and South Carolina, along with a loss to Clemson in the bowl game that probably should’ve been a win.
Kentucky no longer has bragging rights over the likes of South Carolina and Vanderbilt that it once did, and the Cats are 2-10 in SEC home games over the last three seasons.
This isn’t a one-year blip. It’s a slide that turned into a full-on tailspin last season.
The tough part is that it’s hard to see things improving very much this coming season. The offseason roster remake seems good on paper. Kentucky overhauled the offensive line and brought in quality players at skill positions.
But Kentucky’s schedule looks to be one of the toughest in the country, and it’s hard to even see a path to 6 wins next season without pulling an upset or two.
In Barnhart’s quote, he’s preaching patience, but for the members of the Big Blue Nation who put their hard-earned money and time into the program by purchasing season tickets and driving hours to and from games, two or three seasons of what happened this past season just isn’t acceptable.
Jon Hale did a great job on this story with Barnhart about Kentucky Football. You can read the full article here.
