Mitch Barnhart gets oddly defensive about NIL and JMI questions

On Wednesday afternoon, the BBN got their first chance to hear from their new head Kentucky football coach, as Will Stein was introduced at Nutter Field House.

It was also one of the times this year we will get to hear from UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart.

After the introductory press conference, Barnhart also fielded some questions from the media surrounding NIL and the JMI situation with UK Athletics. A question that has been danced around for some time, what better chance to get a solid answer?

Not this time.

Firing back with some defensive answers, Barnhart seemed quite agitated at anyone questioning his operation.

“We’re confident in what we’re doing,” Barnhart said UK’s NIL efforts. “People ask that question 19 different ways with all that stuff that’s been going on, and it’s exhausting. Enough. Enough about ‘Have we got enough?’ We’ve got enough. And we’re working at it just like everyone else is working at it. We’re no different than everybody.”

Barnhart went on to claim UK’s resources are good enough to get things done “the right way.”

“This notion that we don’t have enough is ridiculous. We’ve got enough. We got to resource it the right way. We got to assess talent the right way. We got to acquire it the right way, and we got to make sure we’re within the boundaries of the rules,” said Barnhart.

“We’re not going to break the rules. That’s flat-out, we’re not doing that. We will do it the right way. We don’t need to do that. We’re good enough at what we do, and we’ve got good people. That’s why we hired this guy (Will Stein). He’s really smart. He’s put together a really good game plan of how they’re going to do it, and on the first day, they’ve made some really nice adjustments to what we’re doing, and we’ll be fine.

“That notion, all this nonsense that’s been created by a variety of places, we don’t have enough or we’re not working at it, it’s gotta stop. That’s enough.”

Barnhart also got pressed on the new “front office” type of roles that are now needed in college athletics, especially for the big two in football and men’s basketball. He also gave an interesting answer.

“I think it’s just semantics. General manager, player personnel, talent acquisition coordinator, I’ve heard all that stuff. There’s 19 different titles out there. The structure, it all comes down to the same thing. It comes down to talent evaluation, talent acquisition, and putting things in place that legally allow you to compete.

“All this notion that coaches aren’t controlling their rosters and they’re not making decisions, it’s ridiculous. At the end of the day, the coach is going to put in that program who he wants to put in that program to make plays. Period. Or he’s not going to be the coach very long.”

Sounds like Barnhart has some strong opinions about the new look of college athletics. Let’s just hope he doesn’t hinder UK athletics.