The House of Blue

HOT in Lexington today. The first really warm day thus far for Kentucky's football practices. That's a good thing though because I think we all know the odds are high that on Sept. 2 at 3:30 in the afternoon at the Pizza Oven it's going to blazing hot. Anyways, to the notes:

***As I mentioned yesterday, it appears there is going to be someone asking for a daily quarterback battle update even when Joker Phillips clearly isn't going to divulge any information until after one or two scrimmages. Low and behold, he basically said just that today. Stay tuned, I'm sure he'll get asked again tomorrow as well.

“It's hard to answer anything,” Phillips said. “Every day we're still installing, it's new plays. We might go back and put a couple of plays we installed the last few days but usually it's new plays, new installs, new reads, different reads, different formations. It's just hard to make any type of judgment right now.

“We'll just let it play out. We'll give the two guys who have been here the longest the most reps in the first scrimmage and the second two guys equal reps between those two and see how they handle what we give them. Then we'll start dwindling from there working toward the next scrimmage.”

***Everyone is probably wondering about the wide receivers and that position was on the minds of several reporters today, as I was going to ask about their progress and someone beat me to it. Joker's quote is below but reading between the lines, you can tell he is cautiously optimistic about guys like Demarco Robinson, Daryl Collins, DeMarcus Sweat and A.J. Legree. In fact, I saw Legree doing some extra reps after practice today and that's always a good sign for a young guy when they're willing to do some extra work, especially on a hot day like today.

“If you play receiver at this level you had better be able to catch the ball. We've gotten better at that,” Phillips said. “A couple of the young guys are starting to show they can do that consistently. Now, it's only been a few practices and we're not going full speed so again, I'm holding judgment. I've seen it on the field before and then we get into game situations and we don't see it. I want to see it done in the stadium.”

***If you remember, Joker made a famous comment in the spring (and again in the summer) about whether or not Kentucky's 2012 punter was on campus or not. The clear implication was he was not real enamored with Joe Mansour or walk-on Jay Willmott in the spring and was anticipating (or praying) true freshman Landon Foster would come in and win the job outright in camp. Sounds like things are trending in that direction.

“(Foster) has got a chance,” Phillips said. “He and Joe Mansour both are punting it well. The young freshman is probably little faster right now, which we all know the key is how fast you can get it off. You can turn the guy free up the middle if you get it off fast enough because he can't get there. We have to get it out quick. Right now, (Foster) is the fastest we've ever had.”

***Joker was also asked about the move toward rugby punting and for those of you who don't believe the head coach reads his own mail, well, sounds like he does.

“We've gotten e-mails about why are we rugby punting with an NFL punter?” Phillips said. “A lot of times with the new formation that everybody is using you see rugby kicks to try and get away from the rush. You see it in the red zone a lot. You usually don't get that big a return. You get the ball on the ground or line drive it and it scares the blockers because they're afraid to get hit in the back. It's a play that has changed college football.”

***More special teams stuff: Sounds like Demarco Robinson is getting first crack at nailing down the punt return duties.

“We worked our punt return a little bit today,” Phillips said. “I like the guys we have up front but we hadn't really had a chance t see the skill guys we've got back there on returns but I'm excited about the confidence Demarco Robinson has back there catching them. That was a problem last year with him, losing confidence in himself and us losing confidence in him. You drop two and we're going to lose confidence in you because the object of it is to finish that play with the ball. We feel good about the core guys we have.”

***It was an offensive players interview day so I spent some time with Larry Warford and Matt Smith discussing what makes the defensive tackle duo of Mister Cobble and Donte Rumph so good. Look for a story on that down the road but the short version is they really believe those two guys are every bit as good as what they see from the SEC's top teams week in and week out. They've both matured a great deal, gotten themselves in shape (Warford joked about how terrible of shape Rumph was in when he got to UK) and are coming into their own.

***Smith also told me Max Godby is working as his primary backup at center right now, but freshman Zach Myers has started out his career at center and might be the future.

***As for depth chart movement, don't expect much until after a scrimmage or two.

“It's not fair. It's not fair to the guys that are lining up after four practices and none in full pads to set a depth chart,” Phillips said. “It's so hard to set a depth chart with how we're going to line up against Louisville because it's way too early.”

***TCP's Matt McCarty filled in admirably as a photographer today and should have a photo gallery from after practice later this evening.