[Cactus Jack]

I’d be okay with hiring anyone, hell, tom crean if it meant getting cal out of Lexington so we can recover.

We’d already be back in the thick of things if we’d done that 6 years ago.

I think the next hire needs to be one of two things.

A home run.

Or

A placemat to build back up the coffers.

Either way he needs to be fired on the tarmac tonight. Let him go recruit his g league rejects somewhere else or save face and step into his retirement role. I don’t care either way as long as he’s off the sideline.

The dream hire is Brad Stevens. Always has been. He turned down Indiana for 10 mil a year to stay in the front office with the Celtics. You’d have to give him a contract of 12 mil a year for 10 years guaranteed or something in that neighborhood.

I’m not impressed with any other coach we could get in the college game at this time. You don’t bring in Hurley. We don’t need a duke guy. Drew, Oats, Pearl, Bears, etc are all the same guys. Not good enough for here. So you go cheap and recover. Take a chance on someone young that won’t cost much and if it works out great and if it don’t fire him once the moneys there to get whatever you want.

Also take some of stoops money if you have too. Ain’t like that program is winning more than 7 games anytime in the next 30 years with the new alignment.

In summary, figure out the cal situation tonight. If your Capulto grow some nuts and fire Barnhart with him.

Looks like I'd posted a response that I'd been typing up while you'd posted this one. Sure, Brad Stevens would be great, but there's no way on Earth that it happens.

I love Kentucky football and hope they keep Stoops as long as possible. It might not seem like a huge difference, but the one to two extra wins per year that he's been able to get is a huge deal. That's the difference between hoping we beat a Mississippi State and Missouri as a slight underdog and upset a Florida, Ole Miss, or Tennessee to go to the Music City or Liberty Bowl and taking care of business as a favorite and hoping that we can sneak up and beat a Georgia, Alabama, LSU, or Texas to go to the Gator, Outback, or Sugar Bowl.

With an expanded playoff coming up, it's not outside the realm of possibility that we end up in some of the top tier bowls for remaining teams or even slip into the playoff in a year where everything breaks right. That's a lot to give up, especially when we have some momentum against a school like Florida that can recover quickly.


The more I've had time to settle down after the loss, the more I am coming to realize that, like it or not, Cal isn't going anywhere until at least the end of next year. Next season will be uncomfortable and downright ugly at times, as I think it will be made clear by fans that he's not wanted and he can be defensive and smarmy when he wants to, but I don't see how the numbers work otherwise.

Cal's at the end of his career and has a sweetheart of a deal that includes being paid after he stops coaching and is pretty strict on "for cause" terminations. If your thought was "would UK owe if he were hit with another NCAA violation" know that it would need to be proven and on the level that the program would be hit with some stiff penalties.

Maybe there's a chance that we can sucker another program into taking him and agreeing to eat some of what we owe him in the process, but that'd require Cal being on board (which he doesn't really have a ton of incentive to do) and for another school to be on board as well (which will be tough given how damaged he is right now).

Would Michigan or even, gasp, Louisville be willing to take him on? Those are probably the only two current openings that could possibly pull something like that off, but they likely realize how much better off they'd be looking elsewhere.


It doesn't mean that we have to like it, but outside of UK and Cal finding a sucker to take on his contract, the realization that we are probably stuck with him for at least another year or two is really starting to sink in.