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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 13, 2010Joker PhillipsCOACH PHILLIPS: Injuries, Melillo is questionable this week. Getting better but not quite there yet. Tai Smith, the same. He's a little bit better, but whether or not he will be able to play this week is yet to be determined. Got a couple guys that are probable. Derrick Locke elbow, Randall Burden, back, Danny Trevathan has a hip, and Donald Russell has an ankle. Should get Neloms back on Tuesday. Think there's a good chance of getting Dakotah Tyler back. Looking at the tape, defensively I thought we smothered them after the first series in the first half. As I went and looked at the game, they were going backwards, which is what you want your defense to do to an offensive team. We had 13 yards in the second drive. Had 4 and an interception on the third drive. Had zero on the fourth. Had minus 10 on the fifth. Plus 15 on the sixth drive. A total of 95 yards, 22 plays in the first half. I mean, I think we're playing dominant defense up until the second half. I think our kids relaxed. That cannot happen. You definitely can't give up 180 something yards to not one rusher. In the second half, they had two 80-yard drives. I think our defense relaxed and was looking for the next one. Those are things we can't do. Offensively I liked our balance, big plays. Had way too many missed assignments. Special forces, the thing that I saw on the video is we got to kick the ball better. I think our return games are starting to come. We're getting them started. We got two dynamic returners. We're starting to get them started in some of the returns. As we continue to get big returns, okay, you'll see people kicking away from those guys, sky kicking, those things, kicking away in the punt. You'll continue to see that. The thing we have to do is cover kicks better. The kick that they returned for a touchdown, we got to kick the ball better first, then we got to cover better. The one that they scored, we had two missed tackles on the 12 yard line, had a lot of young guys out there. One of the reasons why we had those young guys out there was because of injuries. You know, we're trying to save some of the guys, the starters, because they didn't have backups. Had like four freshmen on the kick cover team. Had a couple guys that hadn't played a lot. Wasn't any starter out there. For us to be good on special teams, we got to start putting some of our starters out there, which means we got to get some of these injured guys back. There were only two DBs on that team. Two linebackers that was on the kick cover team. We got to get more guys that are used to tackling. Way too many wide receivers, way too many runningbacks that aren't used to tackling. So we got to get more DBs and more linebackers covering. With that, I'll open it up. Q. Akron had a couple guys rushed for a hundred yards. What kind of test are they? COACH PHILLIPS: Well, they'll be a big test for us. I know their line coach and coordinator are excellent coaches, John Latina, Mitch Browning, both excellent line coaches. Latina now coaches the runningbacks. They know how the run the football. Mitch Browning and I were together at Minnesota where every year we led the league in rushing. He was at Tennessee last year, coaching their offensive line. He understands how to run the football, which has been one of the things that we need to get better at stopping the run. We just got to play for 60 minutes. We can't have any letups, can't give up any big plays, got to be sound, gap sound. We can't run under blocks. We run under a block on the perimeter and a guy goes 59 yards untouched. We can't do that. Got to force the ball back to the pursuit. We go around under a block, he gets out. Those things can't happen. There are some talented backs out there. Akron will have some talented people also. Q. The players felt the biggest problem was poor tackling. Considering how physical you are, are you surprised they haven't tackled better? COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, I am. A lot of it had to do we got some young guys trying to tackle, especially some new guys also. A couple of them are beat up with Mychal Bailey, a new guy. Mychal, one thing he had done in the pre-season is tackle. I don't know if he's beat up. But one thing he's not doing, he's not pulling the trigger, what we call, going and attacking people. We're not wrapping it up. We're hitting way too high. Guys are carrying us for extra yardage. We have to wrap up. We got to game tackle also. Today's backs are squatty, thick-legged. It's hard to get your arms around them sometimes. We got to game tackle once we get them wrapped up. That's not happening either. Q. Defensively do you feel like you got better? COACH PHILLIPS: I did, you know. You have the numbers from the first six drives, so I did feel like we got better. Like I say, we gave up some big plays in the second half. Those are the things that are discouraging that our guys are relaxing. That's the thing we talked about at halftime: Let's show how mature this football team has become in a week. We let up. We didn't keep the pressure on. After the first series, the pressure was on. Our guys on defense played really fast. I'm watching the film. When you first start watching the film, you're a little down because you have 180-something-yard rusher, they score 28 points on you, then you start looking. Wow, these guys are playing, playing fast, playing hard, game tackling. In the second half, I think there was a huge letup. A lot of that has to do with the way the game's going. They see it in hand. We want a mature team, which is what we talked about wanting to be. Q. Are teams running away from DeQuin more? COACH PHILLIPS: They're not doing anything different. Defensive linemen do not make a lot of tackles. Corey Peters had 56 tackles, right, something like that last year, 56 tackles. Defensive linemen just don't make a lot of tackles. He's made some plays, but he's not showing up as much as we like in the past game. In the box scores, you look at the box scores, not a lot of defensive linemen making tackles. But he will make plays for us before the year's up, a lot of plays, more than 56, I would think. And Corey made 56 tackles, and he was a dominant player. But, like I say, you think those guys make plays. The guys have to make the plays. A lot of times those guys didn't hold the gap, turned the ball back inside, turned the ball into the defensive linemen and also to the linebackers, okay? Q. Is he getting any more attention, though? COACH PHILLIPS: No, he's not getting any more attention. He's doing his job. He's doing his job by turning plays in when he needs to. He hasn't been out of place. Just hasn't made any plays. Q. Would you say stopping the run is the number one problem on this football team? COACH PHILLIPS: Definitely, stopping the run. On kicks, too, I consider that stopping the run. Once the guy has the ball in his hand, it's no longer a kick, it's a running play. We have to stop that also. We've given up big runs. Actually, gave up another two big runs on the kickoff return this past week. That's four in two weeks. We got to stop the run in that area also. Q. They said the way the offense has developed, they feel they can come out and score on any team on the schedule. Do you feel that way? COACH PHILLIPS: I hope they're right. We'll need to (laughter). I think it's helped in confidence. I'm glad they saying that. We'll see when the time comes. But I really like their confidence. That's what this offense has been lacking, especially in the passing game, is confidence, especially at the wide receiver position. Glad to hear them saying that. Q. Some of your guys say that Hartline is a different player in the huddle now. Can you see that? COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, you can see he has the weight off his shoulders, number one. The competition that he had at quarterback, he had stronger competition with those two young, talented guys. You could see once it was announced that Mike accepted even a bigger role in leading. Right now he has as much command of the ball as any quarterback I've ever been around. He's seeing what's going on. He's been very accurate, especially on the deep balls. On the touchdown pass to Randall, we had been trying to get our quarterbacks to put more air under the balls, 'cause there's more room for error, gives us a chance to adjust at the wide receiver position. It was a perfect goal as far as how much air and distance he put on it. I think that was probably the best throw I've seen around here in a long time. Q. How important was it that Andre could put the ball out and trust guys to make plays? How is that coming along with Mike? COACH PHILLIPS: That was very important. In high school, I've told people, this is open. Might be three yards. Say it's three yards. In college, this is open. In the NFL, that's open, okay? Now Mike is starting to trust that this is open, this much separation is open. Give a guy a chance. Just got to throw it away from the defensive back. He's trusting that. When you are 6'4", 6'5", you have a 5'8" defensive back on you, that's open. We expect Chris to go up and take it. We expect La'Rod to go up and take it. If you have a small guy versus a big guy, we expect those guys to go up and take the ball. It's a rebound. We ought to be able to out-rebound a 5'8" guy every time. Q. Backup quarterbacks, where is that at? How is that coming along? COACH PHILLIPS: We're not redshirting anybody, that's for sure. It will be a feel thing, what we think we need at that given time of the game, of who goes in first. We rotate them in different drills, who goes in first on seven-on-seven. Morgan might go in. 11-on-11, Moss might be the first guy going in. We have to give those guys as close as we can equal reps and get both of them ready for what the situation calls for, who we want to go with. Q. How much deeper is the playbook this year? More flexible? COACH PHILLIPS: We had everything. You feel comfortable in calling it, you know. Especially once Mike went down, we became very limited in what we could call because of protection. You had a freshman quarterback, understand the protections. I mean, we became very limited. But we've added a couple wrinkles in trying to get play-action things. I think that was the one we got sacked on, though. That didn't work out. But, I mean, we got a lot of the same stuff we've had in the past. Q. (No microphone.) COACH PHILLIPS: One thing Matt is doing for us, he's one of the guys playing well on special teams. He was the special teams player of the week for us. He's caught four or five passes I think. Three of those have been on the big plays that he's made on scrambles. That's what I'm proud to see him do, okay? He hasn't gotten open in the initial route. But the thing he's done, he's done well once the play breaks down and the quarterback gets out of the pocket. He's made three huge plays for us on scramble drills. I'd like to see him get open a little more on his initial route, but he's making plays. That does nothing but help his confidence also. I mean, we think he's got a chance to be a weapon, a huge weapon, for us before the season's over, though. Q. (Question regarding La'Rod and Chris Matthews.) COACH PHILLIPS: Definitely helps. Definitely helps. Your business, too. You're better this year than you were last year, I hope. I hope I'm better next year than I am this year in this business. Those guys are doing a good job. They understand the offense. Chris, last year his first step off the ball would be a hesitation step to see what was going on. Do I have to break this route off? Are they blitzing? This year, we helped him some, too, by getting into some different protections that he doesn't have to worry about seeing blitzers come, seeing if a it's coming. We helped him a little bit. But we still have those protections in that he has to find some of the blitzes also. But he's now being able to run off the ball instead of first step hesitation step, then, Okay, this is what they doing. You know, he's playing a lot faster. La'Rod, mentally he's always understood our offense a little bit better than most freshmen that we've had. But what's helped him is his strength, okay? He's gotten a lot stronger, he's gotten faster. So he's playing faster than he was. He's playing a lot more physical also. He's doing a really good job of blocking the perimeter for us. It is, what a difference a year makes. Same thing, we felt Gene McCaskill was getting better every year. You see his improvement. Q. (Question regarding offensive tackles.) COACH PHILLIPS: We gave up a sack last week, but it wasn't an offensive linemen. One of our backs kind of stumbled, actually lunged at the defensive guy, gave up a sack. I like that our guys haven't given up any sacks. I really like we have captured the corner. We really captured the corner. First week I got some people asking, Why don't we lock up the ball on outside? That's where most of his yards have gone. We've captured the edge with our tackles and our tight ends, your guy, Jordan Aumiller. I thought I would bring that up, okay, before you did this week (laughter). He's caught some big ones. What are you talking about (laughter). You remember the year I said Jacob would be the leading receiver? I really thought that. You know the reason why he wasn't? Huh? Because Stevie Johnson caught 73. But Jordan Aumiller is doing a really good job. Our offensive line and tight ends are doing a really good job of capturing the edge on defenses, which has given us a chance. They're doing it in a hurry. We are fast-moving up front, try to capture it as quickly as we possibly can, getting a lock on the perimeter. Then you have a fullback to clean up. He's been a pretty good clean-up guy. Q. With this team coming up this weekend, what will you do as a staff to keep that letdown in the second half from happening? COACH PHILLIPS: We got to show the game to this past week of scorers. There were four or five 1AA teams that beat Division I teams. We got to show them those types of things. We have to show them the second half. We have to show them the first half of the game they played. We have to show them the six series, how they do when their heads are in the game. We can smother people. We want to be a defense that smothers people. We smothered this team in the first half, other than the first half. Q. You mentioned no redshirts. Why not try to save that as long as you can? COACH PHILLIPS: It's a long season. I mean, we had to make a decision who to go in the game. We just felt like this is the week that we got up so decided to play them both. I don't know. It's hard to put a redshirt on a guy. One of the things I don't like redshirts for is a guy gets hurt, okay, and then after his redshirt year, you lost two years, okay? I'm really not into the redshirting of guys that can help us win. Newton can help us win. He's going to have to help us win down the road sometime. Similar to Mister Cobble. You redshirt Mister Cobble, last year Mister Cobble could have helped us, he could have. Now it's similar, an injury. Now we lose him for two years. I'm really not into redshirting guys that can help you. Morgan can help us win a game. Q. When you have guys that are maybe not tackling as well as you'd like, do you change anything during practice? Do you change anything? COACH PHILLIPS: No, we won't change anything. We have to have more tackling drills, okay? Our practice format will be the same. We'll still continue to thud. But we have to have tackling drills against down-the-line scout guys. The thing that I like that we're doing, and we'll do more of it, our ones are practicing more with our twos instead of scout teams, both sides of the ball. I think that will help us as we get more into it. We got to do more of that, practicing against faster people and better people. Q. How are Morgan and Ryan doing mentally this point in the season as far as handling everything, trying to develop? COACH PHILLIPS: I try to look at how guys are reacting on the sideline, you know. It's hard sometimes to come to practice when you know you're not going to play. It's hard, no question about that. It's human nature. But I've looked at them even in practice. They've been upbeat. You see them on the sideline. They all into it. They all giving Mike information they've seen. They all talking to Coach Sanders on the headset. I think they've been great. Q. How about Martin on your staff? COACH PHILLIPS: He's the best one we've got as far as knowing the dang Facebook stuff. He is. He's great. I mean, guys can relate to those guys. You know, he's really known in the South. The thing when he hired him, I worried about how tough he would be on the kids. I get up one morning this summer. Lo and behold, he's got two or three of them from missing classes at 5 in the morning. I was like, We got the right guy, total package. He's young, energetic, got great knowledge of the game. Really he's addressed that for us. Q. Is the run game Akron's strength? COACH PHILLIPS: Yes. I think their offensive line is their strength, you know, both in the running game and in the passing game. Their offensive line, we were watching it yesterday, Coach Turner and I both worked with the O-line coach at Minnesota. Looks like one of his typical teams: real aggressive, fly off the ball, really know how to outnumber you, stick and stay on blocks. We've got to do a really good job this week. Q. (Question regarding La'Rod noticing the team is a little more together than last year.) COACH PHILLIPS: I think they were a little bit more together than last year's team. I think this year's team is starting to come together now. Success helps that, too. Especially on offense, they're starting to have some success, they're helping each other out with different things. But I think that's important. It's big of him. I mean, that shows his maturity. La'Rod King, all he wants to do is get better, help his team get better. Q. (No microphone.) COACH PHILLIPS: Bear Bryant, I've heard it, yeah. Q. How does that sound? COACH PHILLIPS: Sounds good. Joker and Bear (laughter). End of FastScripts |
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