The House of Blue

There was no formal press luncheon this week because of the Sunday kickoff for Kentucky-Louisville, so we got a few extra minutes with Joker Phillips after today's practice. Here is a summation of his thoughts. I'll have some VIP notes later with a lot of stuff from Randy Sanders, but I have interviews for the Basketball Yearbook here shortly and after tomorrow's football practice so those VIP notes will be a little delayed from normal time. Bear with me. Thanks!

+++Phillips had an opening statement that quickly addressed what he saw from the offense and defense in the Louisville game. Here is what he had to say:

“After looking at it we have some talent on offense and some guys who can make plays,” Phillips said. “We were way too careless with the football. Our offensive line played as good as any offensive line I've been around. Our quarterback was really sharp. But the bottom line was we didn't take care of the football.

“On defense, everybody puts the blame on the D-Line but our linebackers have to play better. They've got to get us in the right calls and they have to stay in their gaps. Our D-Line didn't play great but they didn't play as bad as everybody would think when a team runs for 200 yards on you.

“Obviously we've got a lot of work to do, especially on defense getting our best personnel in the game. We've got a Kent team coming in here that is looking forward to coming in here and playing a BCS team. It'll be a dogfight. It will. A lot of work to do.”

+++Phillips was asked whether he saw any indications of a team feeling sorry for itself on the practice field and he did not sound like a coach concerned about that type of thing. Actually, some of us were really kind of surprised at how good a mood Phillips seemed to be in, especially given he was pretty defensive after the game:

“It's easy today,” Phillips said. “It's still a long season and we still have a lot of games to be played. It wasn't hard today. The attitude is good. And again, I like the locker room I just don't like how we executed all the time on the field.

+++Phillips was asked about the running backs being a significant part of the passing game against Louisville and whether that was by design or part of what Louisville gave them. Sure sounded like Louisville sat back to stop the over the top stuff and forced Kentucky to throw underneath, which led to more use of the backs:

“In this offense there are going to be check downs,” Phillips said. “In this offense we had a lot of designed vertical routes and you didn't see any of them caught so naturally our quarterback's next read is to drop it to our tailbacks and let them go make a play for us.

“It's the same thing on third down, everyone wants you to throw it to the sticks. I don't know where everyone came up with that. It's hard to throw it to the sticks. Where is the defense going to sit? At the sticks. With all the stuff we have with crossing routes and things and we made three or four first downs with guys running across the field, catching the ball, getting their foot in the ground and catching the seam. That's how you make first downs also. If they're playing tight coverage and you can get over the top, yes. Our backs have to be big in our passing game, same with our tight ends.”

+++Phillips was understandably excited about his initial impressions of what the offense looked like and what it can grow into this season. Hard to blame him for that given the performance Sunday (san turnovers, of course), but he did mention they will need to run the ball more in the future:

“I really like how we executed on Sunday,” Phillips said. “We have to continue to grow offensively and keep ourselves on the field, run the ball more. Our backs only touched it 13 times and we have to give them more opportunities than that.”

+++As for the execution of the wide receivers and how many of them were able to get involved, Phillips said part of it was by design and part of it was the way Louisville played, taking away Demarco Robinson down the field, which helped Daryl Collins have a big day:

“Marco wasn't able to get behind them but you guys did see some of his ability on punt returns,” Phillips said. “Daryl had a nice game because a lot of those routes he caught was Demarco clearing out and Daryl coming right in the void. It's a high-low, you've got a high guy, low guy and mid-level guy. We've got to get the young freshmen involved. We have to. Those guys are talented. They're not there yet.”

+++Sounds like more of the talented youngsters on defense are going to play sooner rather than later if there isn't significant improvement soon:

"Yeah, no doubt. Why not?” Phillips said. “Talent will overcome experience any day. You're making mistakes as a sophomore or junior, it's no different than a freshman who's really talented. So you'll see some of the other freshmen getting more reps, especially in the front seven."

+++Phillips was about Aaron Boyd. Here are his comments (spread over two questions) in full:

“So proud of Aaron. I am. Aaron stayed the course,” Phillips said. “He’s grown up a lot. Many of you guys have watched him grow. He’s a lot more mature. He handles his business the right way. I’m so proud of him that he got an opportunity not only to play, but to make some plays for us. He will be a starter, no doubt. Now, other guys will play, but Aaron deserves to be the starter. Again, because of all the little things. He does a better job of blocking, and that’s being unselfish. Therefore, if you’re doing all the little things that we ask of you – he’s done everything we’ve ever asked of him. Now he’s shut his mouth and started to play. Therefore, he deserves to be a starter this week.

“They don’t always grow up as fast as you’d like them to. I heard last night on the (radio) show, Tom (Leach) was reading that Aaron said something nobody knows about him, said he was shy. No. I’ve never heard that. I would’ve never expected that. He’s not shy. He’s a people person, and I get that. He loves people and he loves his teammates here. That’s why I’m so happy for him that he’s got an opportunity to make some plays. I think he’ll have a good year for us, and we need him to.”

+++With a short week, I asked Phillips what the one thing they'd most try and hope to fix defensively would be given the lack of time to fix anything:

“(Alignment) was very disappointing,” Phillips said. “A lot of it was (the coaches) too and we have to give them a better plan so it's easier to get lined up. I'm not just blaming the players, I'm blaming the coaches too.I really like the fact that it’s a short week. We need to get back on the field. We do. The one thing: get lined up. Just get lined up. We were unsound in a lot of things with how we aligned. If we can just get lined up. It really wasn’t anybody getting whipped. You can’t be a guy in this gap and then two gaps later, another guy. We can’t be that. Again, it’s not the kids. We’ve got to do a better job as coaches.”

+++I'll have more on this later, but the style of offense you saw Sunday is likely here to stay and has been in the works since they first saw Maxwell Smith throw (and probably, to an extent, as soon as Patrick Towles signed):

“Just because of the type of receivers we have, the quarterback,” Phillips said. “When we first saw this guy (Max Smith) come in here and throw and work out with us was a bowl game our first year (in 2010). He got five practices in, if you guys can remember. That was a thing that was on our mind: this is what this guy is, a guy that can spread the ball all over the field, get it out of his hands quick. He can manage protections. We really started then thinking about transitioning to this type of offense. Also, we saw the type of receivers we were getting. We have a couple big guys in the upperclassmen, but in the lower classes, we’ve got the small, nifty little receivers.”