Running back JuTahn McClain is one of six UK players facing charges who will not play in Saturday's season-opening game. (UK Athletics Photo)
Kentucky coach Mark Stoops says he takes “pride” in having a disciplined football team early in his Monday press conference because he knows this summer the UK program has not been portrayed as having a lot of discipline. He’s had two coaches arrested and six players currently are facing charges from an incident in March. The players were suspended during spring practice after the incident and were suspended again recently when charges were filed.
“We’ve done things as well as we can for a long time and we’ll continue to do that. We’ll continue to do things right and have discipline on our football team,” Stoops said. “You know how (athletics director) Mitch Barnhart is and Dr. (Eli) Capilouto. They do things extremely, very disciplined and I appreciate them and I appreciate their support.
“I appreciate the University and they went through a thorough investigation and cleared our players and the way they went about it and gave them a fair process, I greatly appreciate them. If I had any evidence, whatsoever, that our players are doing something that needs to be addressed, we have no problem with addressing that and disciplining our players, so we’ll continue to evaluate that process and see how it plays out.”
In fairness, Stoops announced that offensive lineman Nassir Watkins was back full speed but was suspended for the first four games. He did not offer any reasons why Watkins was suspended but he is not one of the six players facing charges.
Those players are Reuben Adams, JuTahn McClain, Andru Phillips, Earnest Sanders , Vito Tisdale, and Joel Williams. McClain, Phillips, and Tisdale all would likely have been on the two-deep depth chart for Saturday’s game if they were not suspended.
Stoops said patience remains the keyword for everyone.
“We’ve been patient, our players have been patient and you have to trust the system. That gets hard. Our players have been out a long time. They missed probably 13 weeks, 14 weeks of time on the field right now with this situation, so I have to believe in the system,” the UK coach said.
Stoops brought in guest speakers during the summer to talk to his team because of this situation.
“We brought in a speaker, Denny Butler, who spent time exonerating wrongfully convicted people and Edwin Chandler, who spent time on death row, was in there with us and talked with our team. It was very powerful,” Stoops said.
“Really appreciate Chief Weathers (Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers), Chief Monroe (UK Police Chief Joe Monroe). They were there as well and very supportive and very comforting to our players that no, it’s not always personal.
“There’s flaws in the system at times and we have to trust that system, and we will, but I also stand by our players until I have the evidence that tells me otherwise. I hope to have all the players out there but I don’t know, that’s out of my hands. We’ll see what happens but we’ll go from there.”
Stoops admitted he had “to be careful” in saying certain things but emphasized he does respect the judicial system.
“I completely trust our prosecutors, I completely trust our Chief. They’re not responsible for the investigation,” Stoops said. “This went on March 3. It’s hard. Again, I’ve got to bite my tongue. I just know what’s been done to our players. I’m not sure what’s been done to others.”
5 Responses
So much for timely trials and swift justice.
Thinking back to my college days and the stupid stuff I did, I have sympathy for these six players and, as students, would probably give them a pass. But as representatives of the U.K football team, they demonstrated extremely poor judgment. I remember my high school football coach saying " when you put yourself in a position of bringing disrepute to your football team, you are not being a team player. You are putting yourself above the team an as such you have no place on the squad". Your team comes first, not second.
The UK football program is trying to build something special and every time a player (or coach) brings bad press to the program it costs. How many 3 or 4 star potential recruits did we lose because their parents or other teams say "well this is how KY manages its program and the kind of people in it". Even if found legally innocent, these players still have to answer to their team for their lack of judgment. Who is going to give them or their team mates an endorsement deal with this kind of press. This probably cost some players money already. They will never know.
This mess isn’t over. I read today that Tisdale passed a polygraph. Well, there is a reason that polygraphs aren’t used in court. It will be by some great miracle that this will not be in the news for quite some time and every time it hits the Lexington Herald, UK will lose some commits. I’m a parent and I know how I would advise my son after reading something like this.
There again no one has been proven guilty just because they been charge. The comments on here are base on facts what the media has written, don’t judge no one until proven guilty. I hate it when people jump the gun and start pointing the fingers or judge what the people had done,
RJohn, sadly I agree.
More info favorable to the involved players is coming out now. One such report said there were racial slurs aimed at two players who were invited to the party by an intoxicated female. That is how the ruckus started. This fraternity has some issues if that report/account is true. Also, the University cleared these young men in their internal investigation, and Coach seems optimistic. I think things will be made right one way or another when all the facts come out. I say this will not hurt UK recruiting one bit, especially if UK takes care of business on the field in 2021.