John Clay's Sidelines

I’ll be liveblogging, old-school style, from the Kentucky football press luncheon today at Commonwealth Stadium.

• On Matthews and the NFL, “At 6-4 he’s definitely a free agent. I think he’s played his way into being a draft pick.”
• Says he is not surprised by Chris Matthews’ improvement. Matthews had a 100-yard receiving game.
• Says Masoli is obviously becoming more comfortable in the Ole Miss offense.
• On Ole Miss, “They’re playing faster. They’re playing a lot of faster. Their offense changed a little bit from the third game to this last game. They ran some zone reads, a lot more nakeds. Defensively, they are all over the place.”
• Said defense was chasing routes in zone coverage, which led to Florida getting receivers open over the middle.
• “We’re not going to make any personnel changes. We’ve got good personnel.”
• Says Mark Crawford, backup defensive tackle, played well on Saturday.
• Said Billy Joe Murphy “held up fine” in his start at guard. “You would have never known he had never played guard before.”
• Said one positive was that team had one false start penalty in a hostile environment.
• Phillips says that the defense is playing “in spurts really, really good.” But said that the defense has been down, and “we’ve had to reel those guys back in.”

• “I don’t think we played very well at linebacker (against Florida). We had six defensive linemen who did a good job filling their gaps, but our second-level guys, they need to do a better job.”
• Said offensive line is playing “really well,” did not give up a sack until late in the game. “We need to get more up to the second level this week.”
• “We got to make tackles. The first guy has got to wrap-up and the second guy is the one who has to try and create the turnover.”
• Said the offense tried to be a little greedy in some spots on Saturday, trying to force things, it was hurt by that.
• On the fan noise: “I’m well-trained, having been offensive coordinator calling plays the past five years.”
• Says that Masoli is apparently a good leader the way he played at Oregon and Ole Miss.
• Joker says Masoli reminds you a little of Tim Tebow, though Tebow was a little more of a downhill guy. On Masoli, “once he gets out in space, he’s more like a running back.”
• Says there will be a couple of periods this week where the team does full-speed tackling.
• Says tackling will be important, especially with Ole Miss having a running quarterback in Jeremiah Masoli.
• Says defense did get some stops, just couldn’t keep continuing it.
• Says difference between players and coaches is that when the plane touches down in Lexington after a road loss, the players’ phones start going off, while the coaches don’t want to talk to anyone.
• Says he feels like the team itself is over the loss to Florida.
• “We’re 3-1. We’re 3-1. We’ve still got an opportunity to have a great season and do something special. But we can’t do anything special if we don’t go down there and take care of business and come out with victory.”
• Says he knows that the Rebels losing Kentrell Lockett hurts, but that UK tried to recruit his replacement, and that he is a good player.
• Mentions that Ole Miss running back, Brandon Bolden, is averaging over seven yards a carry.
• Says if you look at statistics, both about even between Kentucky and Ole Miss.
• Joker again says that tackling was a problem Saturday, not using feet, etc.
• Phillips says he was disappointed by penalties. Said they were not “hustle penalties,” which was a discouraging thing. Penalties were instead dumb penalties, lining up offsides, or having 12 men in the huddle, etc.
• Phillips says he thinks that Stuart Hines will be back at practice on Tuesday.
• Kentucky-Auburn game will be at 7:30 p.m. on either ESPN or ESPN2.
• Players brought to the press conference today were Winston Guy, Brad Durham, Billy Joe Murphy and Chris Matthews.
• Joker Phillips should take the podium shortly after noon.