Kentucky's 10-win season back in 2021 was just wiped away by frivolous NCAA penalties

I distinctly remember watching the 2021 Kentucky Wildcats team play very well in the SEC that year. Even though my alma mater of Georgia dismantled them with their all-time great defense, that was still a very good Kentucky team. Liam Coen was the offensive coordinator. Will Levis was the quarterback. Chris Rodriguez was the star tailback. Now, all 10 of their wins have been sadly vacated.

This is because the NCAA found the Kentucky football team and swimming program to be in violation of the Level II variety. Talk about a Friday news dump... These punishments stem "from 11 Kentucky football players being paid for work not performed at the University of Kentucky hospital between Spring 2021 and March 2022." It was self-reported by UK, but Rodriguez still played in every game.

The NCAA released this statement about Kentucky vacating wins and going on two years probation.

“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."

Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart spoke after the fact about Kentucky being on probation.

“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."

He may have been appreciative of Kentucky self-reporting most of this, but vacating wins is moronic.

"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."

In the modern age of college athletics, there are better ways to punish programs than vacating wins.

Kentucky has to vacate all 10 wins from the 2021 college football season

While I understand ineligible players where playing for Kentucky that season, even after they self-reported the incidents that took place over the course of two years, you are never going to convince me that vacating wins, implementing bowl bans or taking away players' precious hardware is a good idea. Those are archaic punishments. I am all in favor of scholarship reductions and show causes.

Thankfully, Kentucky is not getting a bowl ban. Under Mark Stoops, Kentucky has gone from one of the worst programs in the SEC to a team that is going to win around eight games most years. This is historically a basketball school, but under Stoops' guidance, he has made UK one of the tougher outs in the old SEC East. There are no divisions any more, but Stoops still made Kentucky respectable.

Besides the NCAA trying to convince us that the 2021 Kentucky football season didn't happen, the other big thing I have an issue with is how this could paint a negative picture on Stoops' coaching resume. Believe it or not, he is on a hall-of-fame trajectory. Yes, it will be of the Bill Snyder, Gary Pinkel, Gary Patterson variety of being strong at a non-traditional power for a long time, but it is impressive.

The other thing is while it shows that he was not complicit in any wrongdoing, these are the type of NCAA violations that could result in a show cause. I am not saying Stoops is ever going to leave Kentucky, but Kirk Ferentz isn't getting any younger and Mike Norvell may have an itch to coach somewhere beyond Tallahassee. I bet Iowa and Florida State would love to hire Stoops eventually.

For now, try not to let 10 hard-earned wins be vacated because the NCAA wanted to feel important.