On what is normally a very exciting day to officially kick-off the Kentucky Football season that’s also known as Media Day, the Kentucky football program and swimming programs both have received notice from the NCAA to receive penalty for action performed many years ago by student-athletes receiving payment for work not actually performed, violating NCAA rules. As of today we have a sanction for the football side of things but not yet for the swimming program portion.

According to the press release by the NCAA, the school has been put on a two-year probation and will have to vacate certain wins earned from “ineligible” players during that time.

“Kentucky has reached an agreement with NCAA enforcement staff on impermissible benefits that occurred in the football program and rules violations involving countable athletically related activities that occurred within the swimming program, as well as the appropriate penalties for those violations. Kentucky agreed that the violations in the swimming program supported findings of a failure to monitor and head coach responsibility violations. A Committee on Infractions panel has approved the agreement. One former coach did not participate in the agreement, and that portion of the case will be considered separately by the Committee on Infractions, after which the committee will release its full decision. 

The agreed-upon violations involve at least 11 football student-athletes receiving payment for work not performed between spring 2021 and March 2022. Eight of the student-athletes went on to compete and receive actual and necessary expenses while ineligible. The enforcement staff and school agreed that no staff member in the athletics department 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. 

Additional agreed-upon violations involve the men’s and women’s swimming program exceeding limits on countable athletically related activities when student-athletes 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. 

The committee will not discuss further details of the case to protect the integrity of the ongoing process, as the committee’s final decision — including potential violations and penalties for the former coach — is pending.

By separating the cases, the Division I Committee on Infractions publicly acknowledges the infractions case and permits the school to immediately begin serving penalties while awaiting the committee’s final decision on the remaining contested portion of the case. That decision will include any findings and penalties for the former coach. 

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.”

To sum up all of that, Kentucky Football will have to vacate all of their wins from the 2021 season in which they went 10-3 overall and also will be put on a two-year probation due to 11 named players being paid from the local UK hospital without actually working shifts to earn those wages. The NCAA declared this officially as a Level II violation. As to what that probation intel’s exactly, it hasn’t been made public yet.

The school announced that for the portion of this that regards the UK swimming program, a former swimming and diving coach “did not participate in the agreement” and “his portion of the case will be considered separately by the Committee on Infractions, after which it will release its full decision.”

We will update this story when more news comes out.