Bob Stoops and Paul Finebaum both understand that football money is what counts the most today

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Would it be easy to replace John Calipari? SEC Network host Paul Finebaum thinks so. (Jeff Houchin Photo)

Former college football coach Bob Stoops, the brother of Kentucky coach Mark Stoops, said on “The Morning Animal” during a radio show appearance in Oklahoma City that there was no reason top colleges should not be able to do well in both football and basketball.

He was careful not to say a lot about the Mark Stoops-John Calipari-Mitch Barnhart controversy but did wonder when the last time there had been “conference realignment talks around basketball” and I assumed there have been very few.

“Point being, there’s a lot of SEC money and money that goes into having a really good, quality strong college football program and that money gets spread around to all sports,” Bob Stoops said.

SEC Network host Paul Finebaum is never shy with his opinions and has talked about the UK squabbling on his show and did not hold back at all Monday morning when he was on “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning,” a radio show in Birmingham.

“I don’t need to explain Kentucky basketball. But you and I understand in 2022 when billion dollar deals are being made across the board, it’s about football. It’s not about basketball. You might have legitimately been able to have heard Mike Krzyzewski say a year ago that we’re a basketball school. But even at Duke today you probably couldn’t make that statement and you certainly can’t make it at Kentucky,” Finebaum said.

He thought Calipari calling UK a “basketball school” while referring to Alabama and Georgia as football schools and hoping UK could win 10 football games was Calipari’s “worst moment” in his time at Kentucky.

But Finebaum also thought it was clear from UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart’s comments Saturday that he was siding with Stoops and not Calipari. He also called it the “biggest story in the SEC right now” — something some UK fans still want to blame on the media.

“Just listening to our audience, and we have a lot of Kentucky fans that call in, they’re very mixed on him right now,” Finebaum said Monday morning. “I mean are you guys telling me you can’t find a coach better than John Calipari right now? Billy Donovan? I’m just throwing a name out there. A young coach who is up-and-coming? Take your pick. John Calipari is really no longer the best option for the University of Kentucky.”

Not quite sure I would go there because Calipari had a team that could have won a national title last year — remember UK beat Kansas and North Carolina, the teams who played in the title game, during the regular season. I think Calipari also definitely has a team that can win the title this season.

But Finebaum is right about this story not going away when a coach who has won a national championship is basically called “entitled” by his athletics director and told if he doesn’t like it then he can just walk away which is what Barnhart implied Saturday.

This is really not a football-basketball controversy any more but a Calipari-Barnhart deal. Calipari wants a new practice facility. Barnhart doesn’t want to build one. That’s why this is all about and will continue to be about but finding a coach better than Calipari is not something I think can be done nearly as easily as what Finebaum believes.

8 Responses

  1. While I think Cal used a bad choice of words by saying “UK is a basketball school and Alabama & GA are football schools”, he is not incorrect – but not PC either. PC would have included the word traditionally… Had he just said traditionally or historically he would have been ok. It would have been by definition complimenting Stoops by insinuating the changes since he has been here. Finebaum would still have jumped on it to create controversy, but perhaps Stoops would not have felt the need to be defensive giving less fuel to the anti-Cal folks. We (Cat fans) are ecstatic about the job Stoops has done. In only10 years he has brought us into football relevance and we very much want to keep him here and make sure he is happy… but that still does not make Cal’s statement wrong, just not very diplomatic. I would be curious whether Finebaum would be as upset by someone referencing the SEC as a football conference.

  2. Cal’s comment was at best unnecessary and unproductive. At worst the comment was divisive and downright patronizing to a UK football program clawing its way to earning respect from our SEC colleagues.

    That said the worst comments came from Mitch Barnhart who may have done more to rally a frustrated fan base around Cal.

    Draw line in the sand Cal is horrible leadership. Publicly Mitch showed his own posterior.

    Cal is weakened in popularity since 2015. That is true. A losing season. Shaedon Sharpe. No Final Fours since 2015 and we lost the all time win moniker.

    Oh yeah and that kneeling thing too. Cal is weakened

    But he is a good coach and a better person. And he has a super team this year. Maybe good enough to win #9.

    Mitch wrote a check that he might not be able to cash.

    I know I have been frustrated with Cal. But Mitch made this worse. As AD his job was to kill the story and bring a calm to the bluegrass.

    Instead national pundits are taking shots at UK.

    Kenneth Horsey said it best we are an everything school. He is right. That should be the official statement by all representatives of UK.

    As for me I want to win everything. But I love and die with Kentucky Basketball. It is my heart. Don’t mess with my heart.

  3. Larry am I correct that the basketball team made about 9 million more than football last year? The numbers I found were about 39 million basketball and about 30 million football.

  4. Man who cares about your heart? Football pays the bills and Stoops is feeding a lot of people! Cal is feeding his ego. If we don’t make a deep run in the tournament this year, Cal needs replaced. Hello couch O!

  5. First, I know SEC football makes a lot of money, even for the lower SEC team. No doubt UK needs to have improving football as the current top money priority. Still instead of so much talk about it, what are the actual revenue numbers from last season, for the last decade, etc.? How do they compare and what is the trend over the past 10 to 15 years.

    Second, Finebaum is way over the top with his thoughts on Cal, one could argue he is just irresponsible, or that he has football blinders on.

    Third, it absolutely IS NOT a football vs basketball controversy, but rather a straight up Calipari-Barnhart issue. For now Mitch is exercising power, taking full advantage of the overall situation. Time will tell between these two but my money is on Cal…

  6. Larry, some media members are saying Cal has the money raised to build it and MB is still denying. Is that true? I heard Cal asking for earmarked money from the Univeristy of legislature. Seems like it would be hard to raise that much $$ from former players?

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