The House of Blue

Friday's practice was important to UK head coach Joker Phillips in its own right, but the eighth practice of fall camp seemed to serve more than anything as a primer to Saturday's scrimmage.

In that sense, evaluating Friday was difficult for Phillips. It wasn't exactly the cleanest practice; players were getting sloppy and participating in a bit too much extra-curricular pushing and shoving after whistles. Instead, Phillips spent more time previewing Saturday as an opportunity for position battles to begin shaking themselves out.

Yes, that means The Big One—quarterback—could theoretically be settled by the time Morgan Newton, Maxwell Smith, Patrick Towles and Jalen Whitlow walk off the Commonwealth Stadium field late Saturday afternoon.

"Tomorrow is very important," Phillips said. "I would like in a perfect world for it to be over with after tomorrow. I’m not sure that will happen, but I would love to see that happen tomorrow if a guy separates himself enough. The thing is, if you don’t separate yourself enough that we feel comfortable with, we’ve got to give it another week. I would love to see one guy come out here, take charge and take control, separate himself enough from the pack that we say, ‘Hey, this is our starter,’ and be done with it so I don’t get the same question every day."

Phillips was asked if it's possible the quarterback competition could be pared down to two after Saturday. It all just depends on how the competitors do, he said. It seems Phillips is approaching Saturday's scrimmage and the position battle with an open mind.

"If those top two guys separate from themselves enough from the freshmen, we will," he said. "Otherwise we’ll give it another week. I think it’s only fair to those young guys. They’ve only been here a week. Today was practice eight. The thing we have to do is make sure they get a fair opportunity to compete."

-Another position Phillips is looking at closely is punter. That decision, between junior Joe Mansour and freshman Landon Foster, could be made tomorrow as well. Phillips said he can survive with one, but he really wants to be able to rely on both. Mansour has all the talent one could want, but he has struggled with consistency in his first two years at UK. Based on Phillips' comments so far through camp, Foster seems to have the upper hand.

-Back to the top: Friday's practice was fiery, Phillips said, but not in a good way. That said, it's not all for naught. Passion is good. It's early, so Phillips just hopes his team learns to channel that passion and energy in a more positive way.

"I like the fire, now," he said. "The thing we have to do is send a message that, that’s not what we want to see after plays. I want to see guys being aggressive, guys attacking each other and all those things. But I want to see guys playing smart, especially us. Kentucky can not beat Kentucky. That’s one of our goals. We can’t make dumb penalties. That’s Kentucky beating Kentucky. If you have a guy who pushes a guy late at the end of a play, and he falls over somebody’s leg in practice, that’s Kentucky beating Kentucky. We can not have those types of things happening to us during practice."

-The player that has struck Phillips as having grown up the most since last season is sophomore wide receiver Demarco Robinson. Robinson struggled a lot last year with rudimentary skills like body language and dealing with simple failures such as dropped passes or even small hiccups during practice. Then he started to figure things out. He had a good semester academically in the spring, and Phillips thinks that has gone a long way for Robinson. Then he aced both of his summer classes. That boost of self-confidence has carried over to football.

"He’s such a talented guy, now he understands what’s going on which allows him to play a little faster," Phillips said of the sophomore. "He’s a lot smoother in how he does things because he’s so confident. We need him to play like that tomorrow. He needs to separate himself from the pack also."

Phillips later said of Robinson: "He’s the one that you just notice a difference in the way he communicates with you. Before, he was a guy that would drop his head. He didn’t really want to look at you in the eye. He’s now one of those guys that shakes your hand firmly and communicates with you the right way. He knows what’s going on, on the field. Again, he can take it to the scrimmage tomorrow and let’s get him to the game."

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We'll be there at the scrimmage tomorrow. It's not open for us (or anyone) to watch, but we'll get reactions from Phillips, assistant coaches and players. Until then: What is everybody hoping comes from tomorrow's scrimmage?