Barnhart emerges from under desk and gives review of football season & status of program

[BARBQGRILLER]

REALLY, MITCH? Is that what you did when you gave Stoops $18 million halfway through year TWO?

God what a LIAR.

Excellent Post ! Right on Target !

 

[Anon1663421675]

Lots of meetings, so is Barney getting really involved now?

Gosh I hope not, his hiring record is not to good.

 

[WildCard]

He could have and May should have. Like I say that's a fair question, but again I think the answer is because he was caught up in the momentum as we'll and I believe was conscious of recruiting and had heard the reports of negative recruiting saying Stoops would move on to bigger and better and wanted to give The staff that bullet it diffuse that on the recruiting trail. I know it's hard to remember now but then we really had a buzz going and recruiting seemed like it was better than ever with Young, Jackson and others stating their 100% commitment no matter what. I think Mitch got caught up in that and wanted to remove any roadblocks to what they had going.

That (i.e., caught up in the excitement) probably is what led to the extension. But, as an "executive", you simply can't make such a decision based on what "feels good now". At the time of the extension (more or less when UK was 5-1), their opponents were:

TN-Martin 2-5
OH 3-3
@FL 3-2
Vandy 1-5
SC 3-3
ULM 3-3

That 5-1 (5 at home) against opponents who were collectively15-21. Needless to say none of these opponents were in the top 25 by early October. It's fine to be deliriously happy over the 5-1 start and making tentative bowl plans. But it is another thing entirely to make a contract decision that could have a profound affect on the future without at least taking a hard look at what really had been accomplished at that point.

Stoops was in year 2 of a $11M 5 year deal. No one will ever convince me that "he'll be gone" was a truly viable negative recruiting tactic by others. On that point, the big 2014 recruiting class had everyone but 2 guys (Richardson and Baker) committed by February of 2014. I can possibly understand bumping up his base deal at that time but will never understand the ludicrously 1 sided buy clause for what was still an unproven HC. JMO.

Peace