UK’s Mark Stoops raised lots of questions with Georgia comments. Here are some answers.

As Kentucky football works to bounce back from a blowout loss at Georgia in time for its homecoming matchup against Missouri, much of the focus outside the locker room has instead been pointed at the comments Mark Stoops made on his Monday radio show.

“Fans have that right (to complain),” Stoops said. “I give it to them. I just encourage them to donate more, because that’s what those dudes are doing. I can promise you Georgia, they bought some pretty good players. You’re allowed to these days. We could use some help. That’s what they look like, you know what I mean, when you have 85 of them. I encourage anybody that’s disgruntled to pony up some more.”

The first Herald-Leader tweet including that quote from Stoops was viewed more than 670,000 times in 24 hours. The comment has drawn attention across the college football world, but many of the most passionate responses have come from Kentucky fans themselves.

Here are a few answers to some of the most common questions resulting from Stoops’ comments.

Why doesn’t Stoops donate some of his $9 million salary to UK’s name, image and likeness efforts?

NCAA rules prohibit coaches or schools from paying athletes.

“I wish I could give it back to the collective because I would,” Stoops said last year. “I want to.”

Can Georgia or any other school actually buy players?

In the last year, most coaches have openly acknowledged the growing importance of showing high school and transfer recruits the available NIL opportunities, and the prevalence of so-called NIL collectives has made it easier for players to receive direct payments.

A collective generally operates by pooling donations from boosters in exchange for special access to athletes through a variety of events. For instance, The 15 Club, one of the most active UK-affiliated collectives, solicits either one-time or monthly donations from fans then distributes that money to players. A variety of perks, including merchandise and access to player events, is available depending on the tier of donation.

In October 2022, the NCAA issued updated NIL guidance that allowed coaches and other athletics department personnel to assist collectives with fundraising as long as school staff members are not employed by or own a stake in any NIL entity. NCAA rules also prohibit schools from requesting collectives direct money to a specific sport or athlete, but there is no shortage of examples from across the country of players, both from high school and the transfer portal, being promised specific NIL payments during their recruitment.

How do state laws differ on NIL?

Coaches and administrators, including UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart, have called for federal legislation governing NIL activities for college athletes in order to bring uniformity across state lines. Multiple bills have been filed in Congress, but to date none have come close to actually being passed.

In the absence of federal legislation, varying levels of NIL activity are allowed depending on which state you live in. Kentucky and Georgia are among at least 30 states that allow high school athletes to make money from NIL endorsements.

Among the most advantageous NIL laws for universities is Missouri’s. That law passed in July allows high school athletes in the state to start earning NIL payments only after they sign an athletic letter of intent with an in-state college. Missouri’s law also allows coaches and school officials to directly facilitate NIL opportunities. That law is believed to have helped Missouri football land one commitment from a five-star in-state prospect in the 2024 high school class already.

“What’s happening at the state level is exactly what we warned about,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told reporters at the SEC spring meetings. “Our states are making a mess of college athletics. Our states are adopting laws that are not helpful to conduct conference competition and national competition.”

What has Kirby Smart said about Stoops’ comment?

This does not appear likely to escalate into a public war of words like the one between Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher from March 2022 over accusations of buying players with NIL guarantees. After Georgia’s Tuesday practice, Smart declined to fire back at Stoops.

“No reaction,” Smart said, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. “It’s much to do about nothing, really. Mark is trying to garner interest in money from his fan base for his collective. We’re all trying to do the same in terms of trying get money for our collective. Mark and I talked about NIL pregame and we talked about it in our meetings. I’m not biting on that.”

What has the UK administration done to support NIL opportunities?

Stoops has been vocal in the past about needing more support on NIL, but in the same November 2022 news conference where Stoops said he would personally donate to NIL collectives if allowed to, he said he felt he had received adequate support from UK’s administration. Those comments came after UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart publicly endorsed NIL collectives for the first time in November 2022.

In an open letter to fans, Barnhart directed them to three NIL collectives: The 15 Club, Charities for Kentucky and Commonwealth Causes.

Doesn’t this sound like what John Calipari said about UK being a basketball school last year?

Stoops’ comments came just more than a year after he and Calipari engaged in a public back-and-forth after Calipari called UK a “basketball school” while trying to push the administration for facility upgrades.

“This is a basketball school,” Calipari said during his team’s preseason exhibition series in the Bahamas in August 2022. “It’s always been that. Alabama is a football school. So is Georgia. I mean, they are. No disrespect to our football team. I hope they win 10 games and go to bowls. At the end of the day, that makes my job easier and it makes the job of all of us easier. But this is a basketball school. And so we need to keep moving in that direction and keep doing what we’re doing.”

It was Calipari’s direct reference to Alabama and Georgia that drew Stoops’ ire and led him to push back at those comments first on Twitter and later in a fiery news conference after a preseason scrimmage.

Ironically, in pushing back against Calipari, Stoops went out of his way to defend football fans for their financial investment at the time.

“I will defend my players and the staff and the people and the Big Blue Nation,” Stoops said at the time. “I will defend the people that sacrifice. I’ve said it to you how many times? I know how difficult it is to come to these games, how expensive it is, how hard it is to get into the stadium, the parking. It’s tough. It’s a fantastic atmosphere, and I cannot thank them enough. We want to continue to see that. That’s what I defend. I don’t need to defend myself.”

Saturday

Missouri at No. 24 Kentucky

When: 7:30 p.m.

TV: SEC Network

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Missouri 5-1 (1-1 SEC), Kentucky 5-1 (2-1)

Series: Kentucky leads 9-4

Last meeting: Kentucky won 21-17 on Nov. 5, 2022, in Columbia, Missouri