The House of Blue

Listen, Joker has pretty much replaced his entire staff with the exception of Sanders and Smith. Think about that for a minute or two and let it soak in.

People screamed that Brooks staff couldn't recruit and that is true to an extent; Heggins, Petri, Brinson, Thurmond, Ortmayer, and Brown are all gone. We now have a staff that seems (to me) that lacks in coaching but continues to keep us at #60 or below in most of the national recruiting databases.

He has a new staff, they are of his picking. Summers, Turner, Nord, Minter, Cassity, and Pardue are all on Joker Phillips. Maybe if we dump IMO our best assistant in Sanders then things will look better.

Give or take, better recruiters for less coaching ability. It just seems to me that our current classes aren't getting any better but our two-deep just aren't getting coached up.

To scream for a new staff under CJP is just dumb, he has a brand-ass new staff.

Ive talked to a couple of buddies I played with when we were there in the program during the days of the dinosaurs and they said that Joker will not be fired this year but the writing is on the wall for next year if the AA can come up with a possible direction they can go as far as a new coach goes. I havent heard any names yet but one of them wont be Petrino.

"And as for bringing two top, firey, hungry young coordinators in here? What promising young guys are gonna risk their careers for a lame duck ear of the train wreck. We have older guys like Minter and Cassity now, because young guys saw the writing on the wall and wanted nothing to do with it."

Good point. There is a reason T Martin left, and part of it is he saw the writing on the wall.

You spit troof...

Who is Jake Trenton?

In my post I said nothing about an established headcoach. I don't believe there is a coach out there worth paying
$4M a year that will come here. I think we will end up with a coach a step or two down. I think there are more than a few coaches out there that are capable of get UK to a notch or two above where CRB had us.

I believe there are issues facing UK that will make it difficult for any coach to come here and contend for an SEC Championship on anything near a constant basis. I don't think it is impossible by any means for a coach to come in here and win 7-9 games a year and compete with the middle of the pack consistently (and the top dogs occasionally. Anyone expecting up a Tony Dungy, Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden is going to be very disappointed. Probably likewise for fans of sweater vest, Kirby Smart or Gary Patterson. Even damaged goods like Petrino would probably pass if Aubie come a callin'. I do think that a coach along the lines of Butch Jones, Sonny Dykes, Mark Hudspeth, Gus Malzahn, Mario Cristobel or one of many to top coordinators would take the job and could do some very good things at UK.

I do not discount the chance that Joker might just win five or six games in a season beating the non-UL OoC opponents plus maybe Vandy and maybe UL or another SEC in a down cycle like Arkansas is this year. Problem is, I believe five or six wins a year is just about Joker's ceiling.

My problem with giving Joker another season is that he is a prime example of the "Peter Principle" - he has risen to the level of his incompetence. What happens next year if they win four or five games and everyone says, "Progress! He needs more time!" Well since it will be the final year of his contract - they will want to give him a five year contract extension "so he can recruit."

NO! Time for this to stop! Joker is great guy, but great guys lose their jobs every day. He'll end up an NFL assistant or a college coordinator and be fine. I love Joker, but when it comes right down to it, I'm not a "Joker Phillips fan" - I'm a UK Football fan." I want a coach that can sell his vision for the program and have his guys fired up coming out of the tunnel on a weekly basis. As far as I'm concerned, that is not Joker and will n0ot be no matter how many seasons you give him.

Basketball gets way to much blame for UK football woes and is probably the lamest excuse they use. Recent upgrades to the lockerrooms at Rupp and the Coal Lodge were the result of earmarked donations and Cal going out and appealing to friends of the basketball program. This is easy to do when you're winning big at any program.

Sizeable capital improvements like major renovations to Rupp and CWS are hard to sell in economic climates like the cycle we are now in. I believe there will be a request to the state legislature this year or next that will include sports facility improvement and I think the lion's share will go toward CWS. I believe the other earmarked gifts like those for the Rupp lockerroms or the Coal Lodge will be there to, but the program will have to be headed in the right direction. It will not happen as long a joker is at the helm, IMO, but might with a more dynamic HC in command.

Another thing is, while I do believe there are definite needs on the football side of the ledger, I don't believe there is any feasible amount of money that will ever make UK a NCAA football To Dog. Top Dog status for UK basketball is possible merely by having the right coach in place. Part of the reason I say it can never happen at UK is the inherent in-state recruiting disadvantages, but also because UK will never have a university administration or local press corp that will look the other way like those surrounding our SEC Brethren.

Damn good question.

The interesting thing is that it isn't the young players that are killing us on defense. It's the veterans. If we had solid guys playing in place of Mikie benton, Wyndham and Ukwu our defense would be pretty good. We are playing much better at corner and are pretty good up the middle. Teams running yards have come off tackle over the top of wyndham and ukwu and people are abusing Mikie Benton by putting their good receivers in the slot. Go back and watch the Miss. STate game. Bumpus killed us accross the middle. Benton was matched up with him all day. Bumpus had 9 catches. All them came from the slot.

It's a lot easier to hide a player on offense than it is on defense. Goes to show how awful our recruiting was 4 and 5 years ago in the midst of our "glory days".

I'm not going to question Mitch here--he'll either bring in a new coach, or not, and if not, it's because the other options are truly terrible.

But I stand by the AD because I think he has led our football program well. We've had many hard knocks as football fans, but the worst for me was when Guy Morriss left--not because I loved Guy or even thought he was a real good coach--but because we had our best season in 15 years and then lost our coach to a middling program.

I think Mitch realized the damage that kind of thing could cause. There's no way to take the next step--you either hire a guy, he loses, and you have to hire another guy--or you hire a guy who wins and leaves and you still have to hire another guy. The Brooks-Joker plan that developed over time was a wise one and laid the groundwork for a stable program. It did indeed produce the most stability our program has ever seen, which I realize isn't saying much, and clearly the Joker-part of the plan is not going to work out. But we'll be testing the waters with a completely new staff after 11 or 12 years instead of after 3.

But I also assume he had sense enough to know Guy wasn't the kind of coach you wanted to open the purse strings to lock him down. I think that's been borne out. and if there's anybody around who cares to light the match, Guy is probably on the hot seat at Texas A&M Commerce. As bad as it is to get beat down by Florida, I'd hate to think how awful it would be to lose to Incarnate Word by 3 touchdowns.

Good posts by multiple people on here.

If you've read any of my previous posts then you know my stance on this. Without at least 3 more wins down the stretch I believe he is done. You can preach all you want about youth and injuries. Blah blah blah is all I hear. Every team deals with injuries. It's part of big boy football. Joker has been heavily involved in recruiting all of these players so while he may not have been recruiting coordinator (as was pointed out to me) he did have a hand in all of these players coming here. If this team finishes with 2 wins (assuming we beat Samford) then Joker is done.

It won't be that Mitch wants to fire him. Ticket sales, donors, and sponsorhips will dictate he be fired. Anyone who disagrees with this is just being foolish. In today's game losing the program significant amounts of money will get you canned long before losing games will. If Joker is at the helm next season after a 2 win year, ticket sales will once again drop. While I don't have hard numbers since I do not work for UK, I do know that they lost around $5 million on ticket sales alone this year. I think it is safe to say that the athletic program will lose roughly $10 million this year. He won't get the chance to make that $15-20 million loss next year. Let's not forget, the athletic department at UK is self-sustaining and gets no help from the University. In fact, the University has actually borrowed money from the athletic department. With ideas being tossed around such as renovating Rupp, improving football facilities, building a new baseball stadium, etc..., do you really think they will keep someone on as coach who is essentially responsible (at least in the public's eye) for costing all sports programs money?

As someone else said, it's time people around here realize that football is king in America. It is the cash cow that feeds all the other sports programs. A good football program at UK would do nothing but help improve UK's basketbal program. I can't believe people say that it would hurt it. There is no competition for attention. You have football season and basketball season. Yeah, they overlap a few weeks but it's no big deal. This isn't 1970 people. Or the 50's when Bear Bryant was here. Calipari would love nothing more than for him to be able to bring recruits in here during football season (which is when basketball recruits are allowed to commit) for big games and have a packed stadium with a great atmosphere. He would simply tell the recruits, "if you think this is crazy, wait til you see how they act with basketball." It's simply ridiculous that people think like this today. It's working pretty well at Ohio State. I'm not saying we have to win national titles in football. Just be freakin competitive!

Another thing, what would firing and hiring new coordinators actually accomplish? He has already done that. I guess 4 straight bowl games wasn't good enough for him so he brought in "his people". That is working out well. As someone else said, new coordinators would only add a couple of years to Joker's contract. Because then you have to give him time to get his players working in a new system.

Look, Lexington is a small town and a lot of people on here do know some people with some generally good information. But I will tell you with extreme confidence that unless this team finds a way to win roughly 3 more games this year that there will be a new coach. Now I couldn't tell you if it would be Chuck Smith or Jon Gruden, just to throw out stupid names at completely opposite ends of the coaching spectrum. What do you think makes more sense? Running the risk of losing $10-$20 million next year, or spending another $1-$2 million and offering a coach $4 million a year (I think Jokers salary is $1.8 mil if I'm not mistaken, but that may not be right). It's finally starting to hit the athletic department in the one place that it never has, and the one place it simply can't afford it...the checkbook. Money talks. Without improvement, someone will walk.

"Roughly 3 more". There's only 6 more... Is it 2,3, or 4?

I've said all along that joker has to get to 5 or he's gone. 4 won't cut it.