Kentucky Wildcats Football: Mitch Barnhart is Facing the Biggest Challenge of his Career

I stated on the post game podcast that Kentucky’s loss to Western Kentucky on Saturday night was the worse loss that I have seen in the post probation era. The embarrassment that we feel as fans has been immortalized forever on a t-shirt. I hold nothing against WKU, their fans or head coach Willie Taggert for being proud of their win on Saturday. They deserve to be happy and excited over their first ever victory over an SEC school. I’m not offended by the t-shirt, lord knows Kentucky fans have plenty of t-shirts dedicated to big wins. I own one that commemorates the victory over the #1 ranked LSU Tigers.

What I am upset about, along with every other Kentucky football fan, is the state of the program and the product on the field. The Wildcats have gotten worse every year under head coach Joker Phillips. The wins have decreased along with fan attendance, and bowl games seem to be a thing of the past. The saddest thing about this situation is that I believe that we have players talented enough to get us to six or seven victories, we just don’t have the coaching.

It’s now Mitch Barnhart’s job to start looking for the coaching staff that will put these players in positions to win football games. There is no sense in him firing Joker Phillips while the season isn’t even halfway finished. The one thing worse than a lame duck head coach is a lame duck assistant coach trying to be the head coach. But once the season is over, Joker needs to go.

But just because Joker will last the season doesn’t mean that Mitch cannot start looking now. And who he hires as the head football coach may define his career at the University of Kentucky.