One of the most successful seasons in Kentucky football history and in Mark Stoops’ tenure in Lexington, is no more.
On Friday it was announced that the Kentucky football program was among the sports impacted by an NCAA investigation that resulted in vacated wins from 2021 and part of 2022.
While it was determined that no staff member knew about the impermissible benefits, the program still got slapped with a Level-II violation.
In total, it was 11 football players that were found to have been paid for work at a UK hospital while the players were not actually working, essentially getting hours of pay for not working.
Kentucky went on to self-report the violations in the fall of 2022 and proceeded to hold some of those players out of games.
“Kentucky has reached an agreement with NCAA enforcement staff on impermissible benefits that occurred in the football program and rules violations,” a release said.
Kentucky will be placed on a two-year probation in addition to vacating their 10 wins from the 2021 season.
Kentucky went 10-3 in 2021, including a Citrus Bowl victory over Iowa
With the vacated wins, Mark Stoops’ overall record at Kentucky drops to 63-65 over his 11 seasons.
2021’s 10 wins was the second 10-win season for the Wildcats in a four-year span.
However, Kentucky has failed to win more than seven games in three of the last four years.