Kentucky football, swimming programs committed NCAA rules violations

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The NCAA on Friday ruled Kentucky's football and swimming programs committed violations.

The football violations centered on impermissible benefits, while the swimming infractions involved countable athletically related activities.

The university reached an agreement with the NCAA with regard to both programs' improprieties.

The football violations involved at least 11 former players receiving payment for work they did not perform between spring 2021 and March 2022.

Eight of the players went on to appear in games "and receive actual and necessary expenses while ineligible," the NCAA wrote. The organization also wrote that its enforcement staff and Kentucky agreed no athletics department staff member "knew or reasonably should have known about the payment for work not performed, and thus the violations involving the football program did not provide additional support for the agreed-upon failure-to-monitor violation."

As part of their agreement with the NCAA, the Wildcats were fined and placed on probation for two years. The football program also will have to vacate the records of games in which the ineligible players participated.

As a result, Kentucky will vacate all of its victories from the 2021 campaign, when it won 10 games in a season for only the fourth time in school history.

Per the NCAA release, "Kentucky agreed that the violations in the swimming program supported findings of a failure to monitor and head coach responsibility violations." An unnamed former coach did not take part in Friday's agreement; that portion of the case will be handled separately by the NCAA's Committee on Infractions, which will release its full decision at a later date.

The men's and women's swimming program's violations entailed "exceeding limits on countable athletically related activities," the NCAA wrote. Specifically, swimmers were not permitted to take required days off.

The Wildcats also exceeded the NCAA's limit for practice hours for nearly three years.

"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," Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart said Friday in a joint video statement with university President Eli Capilouto. "Our compliance office uncovered both of these violations and worked through, over the last three years, trying to find a way through to solution and resolution, which we have now received.

"So, 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."

After the NCAA's announcement, Capilouto wrote a letter to the university community detailing the violations, noting the "deeply distressing" allegations against former swim coach Lars Jorgensen and what Kentucky is doing "to further ensure a culture of compliance and a community of well-being and belonging for everyone."

While acknowledging rules were broken, Barnhart said he did not want Friday's news "to diminish the efforts of what young people have accomplished" at Kentucky the past 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," Barnhart said. "We've won many, many championships. Many, many postseason events.

"We've graduated … 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."

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.

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