Kentucky Football agrees to vacate wins from 2021 season as part of NCAA violations

Just as Kentucky Football wrapped up its 2024 Media Day, we got a very bad news dump. The NCAA just announced Level II violations by the Kentucky Football and Swimming programs, for which Kentucky has agreed to vacate all 10 wins from the 2021 season, including the Citrus Bowl win over Iowa, and go on a two-year probation.

The football violations resulted from 11 Kentucky football players being paid for work not performed at the University of Kentucky hospital between Spring 2021 and March 2022. Eight of the student-athletes went on to compete and receive actual and necessary expenses while ineligible. When UK self-reported the violations in September 2022, Mark Stoops confirmed that several members of his team were being held out of games due to an undisclosed off-field incident, including Jordan Wright and Chris Rodriguez. Rodriguez played in every game of the 2021 season.

In its release, the NCAA says both its enforcement staff and UK agreed that no staff member in the athletics department knew or reasonably should have known about the players receiving payment for work not performed, so there is no failure-to-monitor violation for the football program. However, the program will be on probation for two years, wins from the 2021 season will be vacated, and UK will have to pay a fine. Kentucky will not have to sit out any bowl games, nor are there any scholarship reductions.

“The agreed-upon penalties in this case include two years of probation for the school, a fine and vacation of records of any games in which football student-athletes competed while ineligible, in alignment with the Level II-standard classification for the school,” the NCAA’s release says.

The swimming violations stem from Lars Jorgensen’s tenure as head coach. While there is a separate ongoing investigation into sexual misconduct by Jorgensen while he was at UK, the NCAA only dealt with violations that the program exceeded limits on countable athletically related activities in which students were not provided with required days off and exceeded practice hours for nearly three years.

The school agreed that it failed to monitor its swimming and diving program and that the underlying violations demonstrated a head coach responsibility violation. Since Jorgensen is no longer with the program and the investigation into him is ongoing, a portion of the swimming case will be handled by the Committee on Infractions.

Statement from Mitch Barnhart

The following is from a video created by the UK Athletics department.

“For over a couple decades, we have worked really hard to make sure that our compliance and our integrity was at the highest level. In this case, our processes worked. Our compliance office uncovered both of these violations and worked through, over the last three years, trying to find a way through to solution, to resolution, which we have now received. We are thankful that the process has come to a close and we’re ready to move forward. This has been a long process, but I’m thankful for the people in our department that have worked hard to bring it to a conclusion,” said the Kentucky athletics director.

“I do not want what we’re announcing today to diminish the efforts of what young people have accomplished in our program over the last two decades. We have been supremely focused on putting rings on fingers and diplomas in hands and we’ve done that at the highest level. We’ve won many, many championships, many, many postseason events. We’ve graduated a number of young people, thousands of young people that have left our program and are accomplishing amazing things in the world. This does not diminish any of that, nor does it stop our progress going forward for what we’re trying to do to continue to do that.

“We will continue to be an educational enterprise in the landscape of college athletics that we’re in. We will continue to teach young people how to compete on the field of play, on the court, in the pool, wherever it happens to be. We will continue to put diplomas in their hands and let them walk out there and be the greatest leaders we know they can be.”

Statement from UK President Eli Capilouto

After news of the violations broke, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto sent out this letter to the campus community.

Campus Community,

Earlier today, a negotiated resolution between the University of Kentucky and the NCAA was announced. In short, UK’s athletics program discovered and self-reported concerns a few years ago about NCAA rules violations in our football and swimming programs.

In addition, a number of campus units internally are currently reviewing the institution’s response to allegations of sexual assault involving the former swim coach, Lars Jorgensen.

I want to briefly outline what we have done and additional actions now underway as we seek to further ensure a culture of compliance and a community of well-being and belonging for everyone at UK.

The NCAA violations are related to two issues: 1) former football players and their employment at UK HealthCare; 2) and, separately, rules around practice times as administered by the former head swimming coach. 

In both cases, once UK became aware of the issues, we rigorously investigated, reported the violations to the NCAA and imposed sanctions of our own. Much of that has been previously communicated and reported.

Today’s announcement by the NCAA represents a final determination and levying of sanctions with respect to the UK Athletics program. The NCAA sanctions imposed include two years of probation for our athletics department and vacating wins during the 2021 football season, including that season’s bowl game. You can read the more about the negotiated resolution at this news release. 

We respect the findings. There is a process. We participated in it. We accept the final resolution, and we are moving forward.

However, it is important to underscore that the NCAA strongly affirms the rigor of our rules compliance and reporting systems within athletics with respect to the football program. And in the case of the swimming program, the “failure to monitor” violation took place during the pandemic. Then, most student athletes were not on campus and our customary in-person monitoring was not possible due to public health protocols.

As an institution and athletics program, our priority is the health and well-being of our students, faculty and staff. That is why we acted swiftly and are working hard to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. For the swim program, that included dismissing the coach for the NCAA rules violations regarding the monitoring of practices that Athletics was aware of at that time.

UK Athletics has built a track record of integrity and excellence under Director Mitch Barnhart’s more than two decades of exemplary leadership and students-first approach. 

But that commitment also means that when we find ways that we can improve, we don’t hesitate to act.

The allegations of sexual assault and harassment of former staff by the swim coach at the time, Lars Jorgensen, are deeply distressing to all of us. 

The most serious of the allegations were only known to us at the time a lawsuit was filed by two former staff members and after the coach had been dismissed.

Mitch and I are sickened by allegations that members of the UK community suffered harm because of the actions of someone entrusted to protect and empower our student athletes and staff. We will not tolerate abuse, and neither should anyone who is a member of our community.

The responsibility in these cases is for our athletics administration to report allegations as soon as they become aware of them. Our Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity Office (IEEO) is to investigate those allegations and make recommendations for potential remedies. 

Those processes are being followed at UK. But we need to go beyond that, and I want to share with you reforms we are implementing across our campus. These reforms will address:

• Investigations of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations carried out by our Office for Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity (IEEO).
• Internal rules and regulations to underscore our commitment to protecting our people and making clearer the ramifications of misconduct. 
• Compliance and communication between our internal agencies from the initial information to completion of investigations.

With respect to IEEO and our internal reviews, we will do much more with respect to our people, our processes and the technology and resources we utilize to assist their investigations. 

We are taking steps now to:

• Hire additional personnel for investigations of allegations of sexual harassment or misconduct. 
• Better track and manage caseloads and streamline responsibilities to ensure sexual harassment and misconduct cases are responded to, investigated and finalized more expeditiously.
• Better utilize and optimize records management software to ensure a more seamless flow of internal communication and information sharing.

Specific policy changes include:

• Anyone found responsible for significant violations of these policies will be ruled “not eligible for rehire” in their personnel file — a designation that is public record for future potential employers.
• All employment contracts and hire letters will include language from existing University policies regarding ethical conduct, including the clear consequences that exist for failure to report sexual harassment or misconduct.
• Enhanced pre-employment screening will be enacted in addition to background checks.
• In rare instances where a settlement with a UK employee is being considered, the IEEO office will be consulted regarding the status of any investigations.

To ensure a culture of compliance across the institution:

• We will convene all units that may play a role in either sexual harassment or misconduct investigations.
• Those units — which include Internal Audit, General Counsel, IEEO, Athletics, Human Resources, Research, UK HealthCare, Faculty Affairs and Student Success — will meet regularly to exchange information and review relevant policies and regulations. 
• We will continue to expand education efforts across campus around sexual harassment policies.

Together, these reforms will help deter sexual harassment and misconduct. Yet, these efforts are a beginning, not an end. We are examining additional ways to improve in service to our most important priority: the health, safety and well-being of all community members.

Thank you for always being a community that cares and one that is committed to each other.

Eli Capilouto,
President

If you are a victim of sexual assault, you can call UK Police’s Special Victims Unit at 859-257-8573 to speak with an advocate. 

You can also report any incident of harassment or sexual assault as a member of the UK community to the Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity (IEEO) online here.

Further, if you or someone you know has been impacted by sexual violence, UK offers free and confidential survivor support and advocacy at the Violence and Intervention Prevention Center. Please call 859-257-3574 or visit uky.edu/vipcenter. In addition, a variety of other resources can be found at studentsuccess.uky.edu/get-help.