You’re implying Stoops is the problem with NIL. From what I understand, Stoops is the reason we have as much as we do. Apparently Stoops is very good friends with the football donors and has cultivated those relationships or we would be in much worse shape.
How long until the "Barnhart was forced to hire Pope" cries begin?
- Thread starter Dr. H Lecter
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Sometimes I rewatch the 2007 Big Blue Madness just to laugh at how excited everyone was. We had no idea
Yeah. I think some people never recovered from the microwave fans comments and feel he isn’t in touch w the pulse of the fanbase, only the donor class. The doubter to that is the donor class keeps the lights on so you do have to cater to them…but it’s a balancing act of still throwing the peasants a bone here and there on the easy “real fan” stuff
I think there is a chance that some of that dissension was introduced by a certain very loud voice with a whole lot of influence who didn’t like Barnhart for personal reasons. That very same influential loud voice was close to Cal at that time as well and we all know how Cal felt about Barnhart. I’ve felt that way for a very long time.
Pope was my first choice.
Ask my wife and 17 yr old son.
They both ridiculed me.
Now I make sure to let them know about my superior intellectual on the regular.
After the intro press event, even they were sold.
Signed,
A single one.
Potentially not wrong on that with how the timelines line up. Mitch has his flaws such as being a little slow/overly cautious to adapt to the changing environment in college athletics at times, or imo a little too much emphasis on no revenue secondary sports and chasing the Directors Cup as I worry that will hurt us when we have to decide how the conference revenue split 25mil NIL money will be divided up compared to how the other major players in Basketball/Football allocate there’s.
But overall he’s a really solid AD that’s kept the university out of major scandal in a scandalous 10-15 years of college athletics w FBI investigations etc …..and maybe some of that “slow to embrace the changing college landscape” played in our favor to keep us relatively clean…so it isn’t a black and white “bad trait” as long as he eventually adapts to the above board stuff and I think he finally has now
I'm old enough to remember when the University's swim team had a big sexual assault scandal. In 2024.
I'm ecstatic about Pope and how things have turned out. Mitch doesn't get flowers. Get real.
I'm ecstatic about Pope and how things have turned out. Mitch doesn't get flowers. Get real.
Mitch made the right hire for sure. But he also botched the Gillispie hire, and it’s common knowledge Cal was not Mitch’s first choice. Cal wanted the job in 2007, and Sandy Bell/Mitch wouldn’t even look at him due to his UMass baggage/reputation. But we had dug such a hole with Tubby/BCG and we had to make a homerun hire. Had Mitch’s job not been on the line—and it absolutely was after the BCG debacle—I highly doubt Cal would have been the choice.
So yes. He deserves praise for the Pope hire. He got it absolutely right. But those who had concerns when Cal resigned were justified due to Mitch’s track record with MBB hires.
What did you see that none of the rest of us did?
How could you overlook the first obvious choice in Bobby Hurley?
Lol that was your takeaway? Stoops (and I must admit I’m not as happy atm) is without question near-peak level we could have expected at Kentucky, given the track record. Getting to just 50% hasn’t been done very often at all at the school and I’m saying we can just keep reality in perspective lol. I already see some of the comments in this thread and you can’t talk sense into some people. Lol
Love what CMP is doing so far but maybe we should wait a while before crediting or blasting the AD over this hire.
When I think of MB, Joker and BCG are hard to overlook. Tack on the ridiculous extensions to Cal and Stoops….woof.
When I think of MB, Joker and BCG are hard to overlook. Tack on the ridiculous extensions to Cal and Stoops….woof.
Wow! Stoops has more losses than any other coach on that list…
2 coaches, 2 buyouts totaling $90 million and the BCG debacle. The answer is NO.
Mitch has made coaching decisions that have made UK competitive in pretty much all sports. Now Football is the cash cow, basketball spends as much as it makes. The rest of the sports lose money but they are competitive in the conference which is what matters most to Mitch and UK.
Now he has been known to make some dumb azz decisions with contacts for a few goobers.
Stop it, you are depressing me.
It is sometimes hard to remember until you actually see the numbers just how bad we have been historically. Maybe it was just selective remembering because the pain was so bad.
I was thinking the same thing.
60-23-5 for the Bear.
Makes me feel a little better but not much.
Don’t forget Tubby, we got lucky on him leaving too.
Mitch didn’t get off to a flying start and his handling of the Joker fiasco was a PR disaster.
MDS, that’s the best they can do? I’ll get some tees made up.
Again, Gillispie was nationally regarded as a very desirable up-and-coming coach prior to his tenure at Kentucky. Nobody questioned it at the time, he was thought to be an excellent hire. Only later did it become clear that the job was too big for Billy.
And Barnhart certainly didn’t keep him around too long, two seasons and he was out the door.
To give the devils their due, Barnhart wasn’t faced with a Calipari/Stoops contract situation because BCG was too stupid to sign his original one, let alone a big increase (not that Mitch ever contemplated offering him one).
I have little doubt Barnhart considers the Gillispie hire the biggest mistake of his career.
Who gives a ****. Not everything has to be an argument. Hes the coach. He’s winning. If somebody’s mad at Barnhart, let em be mad.
Stoops was doing well with what he had when he had 2 star/3 star players. Not now. You can't tell me if rich Brooks had this talent he'd only have 4 wins.
Really? I was not aware of any red flags concerning Gillispie prior to his being hired by UK.
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There were not any. He was also the flavor of the moment...beating LilBro in the NCAAT. WE the fans, ran off Tubby. Look what it got us.
That’s because there weren’t any. Gillispie was unquestionably a top coaching prospect at the time. Some people just can’t handle the massive spotlight at UK and Gillispie was one of those. If not for the drink, who knows he could have been good but we don’t have to wonder. We saw the train wreck occur at a furious pace in this life unfortunately. I don’t fault Mitch for a hire that almost any AD would have made back then.
Arkansas bailed Mitch out on that one but the fact that the buyout was even that astronomical was business malfeasance.
Pope got the job the exact same way Stoops got his job...by going into the interview with enthusiasm and looking and talking like a coach. When a guy looks, acts, and talks like a coach and has had success as a head coach then he's almost certainly a coach. If he has all that but no head coaching success, if he has the critical thinking skills in terms of organization, thinking on his feet, adaptability, and stragegy then he is a coach; if not he is just a guy mimicking a coach. I think by now we have all the information we need to know which one is a coach and which one is a duck.
But….. Mitch wanted Drew. Not Pope. Don’t forget that as Baylor looks like one of Cals teams right now. Boring!!!
Mitch got to meet and interview Pope before we knew him. Once Pope spoke the Fanbase pivoted. We watched his style of play. How could CMP NOT impress you???
Mitch fought alcohol with all his might.
Mitch fought NIL with all his might.
Mitch fights an adult game day experience with all his might.
I’ll take a younger progressive thinker.