John Clay's Sidelines

Some early afternoon notes:

UK basketball has a media opportunity starting at 1:30. Check the blog for video, notes, etc. later this afternoon.

The NCAA football rules committee has proposed moving kickoffs from the 30-yard line to the 35 and to limit the running start by players on the kicking team to 5 yards as a way of keeping players safer. NCAA says its injury data indicates injuries during kickoffs occur more often than in other phases of the game. The NFL moved up kickoffs 5 yards this past season and touchbacks increased dramatically.

If you haven’t heard, Murray State lost its first game last night, falling to visiting Tennessee State. Robert Covington scored 17 points and grabbed eight rebounds for TSU. Murray State was last unbeaten D-1 team. The Racers had won 23 straight games. Isaiah Canaan had 31 points for Murray in the loss.

Hail Mark Gottfried. In the announcement of the McDonald’s All-American team yesterday, North Carolina State has the most signees, with three. State has signed point guard Tyler Lewis of Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.), shooting guard Rodney Purvis of Upper Room Christian (Raleigh, N.C.) and small forward T.J. Warren of Brewster Academy (Wolfeboro, N.H.).

North Carolina State improved to 7-3 in the ACC with a win over Georgia Tech last night.

We should have mentioned this morning that Kentucky signee Janee Thompson was also named to women’s McDonald’s All-American team.

Continue reading ‘Football rule changes, Mark Gottfried and other notes’

(H-L photo/Pablo Alcala)

Big Blue Links for Friday:

• Nerlens Noel is leaning toward Providence, reports GoLocalProv. Scott Cordischi writes: “Ed Cooley and his staff have done a marvelous job with their first recruiting class at Providence College. GoLocalProv.com has learned that it could very well become the best in the entire country. A NEPSAC coach who did not want to be indentified told GoLocalProv.com that 6′-10″ big man Nerlens Noel (Tilton School) ‘is leaning towards picking PC.’” (Hat tip Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog)

• Jarnell Stokes vows to win at Rupp Arena, reports Mike Griffith of Knoxville News-Sentinel. ”It definitely made me more hungry. I definitely wanted to win,” he said. “If anything, I want to win at Rupp Arena. I plan on winning, before I leave, at Rupp Arena. I’m saying that on the record right now. It made me more hungry and made me dislike Kentucky more.”

• Kentucky women maul Ole Miss 82-41 and take a two-game lead in the SEC, reports Jennifer Smith of the Herald-Leader. The Kentucky win and Tennessee loss, to South Carolina, puts some distance between the Cats and Lady Vols.

• Click here for the Herald-Leader photo gallery from UK-Ole Miss women.

Though Wednesday was college football’s signing day, the biggest of the Big Blue Links happened Wednesday night with a Kentucky basketball recruit.

UK target and shot-blocker supreme Nerlens Noel announced that he was reclassifying himself back to the Class of 2012. Noel had been ranked as the No. 1 or No. 2 recruit in the Class of 2013. Now, he will be eligible to start college in August. In fact, ESPNU has moved Noel ahead of Shabazz Muhammad in its 2012 rankings.

“I just thought over the season that I thought I was getting a higher level of competition and was working on my game,” Noel told Dave Telep of espn.com. “I reclassified because I was hurt but I feel like I’m ready to play at the next level.”

Noel has already visited Providence and Connecticut. He has a visit to Syracuse scheduled. He says he also plans on visiting Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgetown and Florida.

Obviously, Muhammad has been No. 1 on Kentucky’s target list for 2012, but Noel may be No. 1-A.

Continue reading ‘BBL: Nerlen Noels now Class of 2012, moves to top’

Transcript of Joker Phillips’ signing-day press conference today:

Opening statement

COACH PHILLIPS: This past season has been a really good season and I say “season” past year, because this thing started a year ago. We didn’t just all of the sudden begin to recruit. Recruiting is year‑round these days, and this staff did an unbelievable job of recruiting. The (recruiting) staff is made up of the coaching staff, their families, their wives did an unbelievable job, our support staff, the people in this building, and across the campus.

That includes Mitch Barnhart, Dr. (Eli) Capilouto, and Coach “Cal” (John Calipari), who did an outstanding job of ‑‑ very few big‑time Division I coaches in men’s basketball are willing to open up their locker room at the 30‑minute mark and let some high school football recruits come in and address them, and I appreciate Coach Cal for doing that.

And Dr. Capilouto and Mitch Barnhart, when we got those guys in front of our prospects, they did an outstanding job of selling our vision and where we are as a football program, and it was a good chance for us to ‑‑ for the recruits to hear from our administration, the support that we have here at Kentucky. This is a strong recruiting class, and the class got stronger in the last 48 hours when a couple of kids decided to join us.

Continue reading ‘Transcript of Joker Phillips press conference today’

Audio of Joker Phillips press conference today to discuss the players signed by the Kentucky football staff.

• Click here for the first part of Joker Phillips’ press conference today at the Nutter Training Center. (18:45)

• Click here for the second part of Joker Phillips’ press conference today at the Nutter Training Center. (21:03)

Kentucky’s 2012 recruiting class has signed on the dotted line, and we will be talking to Joker Phillips at 3 p.m. today.

First, here’s a breakdown of the class by position:

• Defensive backs 9
• Offensive linemen 5
• Defensive linemen 3
• Linebackers 2
• Wide receivers 2
• Running backs 2
• Kickers/Punters 1
• Quarterbacks 1
• QB/Athlete 1

Click here for a sortable list of the signees.

Continue reading ‘Breaking down Kentucky football’s signee class’

With today being college football’s national letter-of-intent day, we’ll be updating this post throughout the day with tweets, headlines, etc.

Over on Jennifer Smith’s UK football blog, she has write-ups on Kentucky’s signees as they are confirmed by UK.

Joker Phillips tweeted that Ft. Thomas Highlands quarterback Patrick Towles was the first player to officially sign with the Cats. The UK coach tweeted: Congrats to Patrick Towles! A qb has to be a leader & Patrick was the first fax in today at 7:01.

A roundup of tweets:

• Joker Phillips at 12:36 – Sterling Wright, a DB from Miami, is in. We watched him a year ago and in prep school. He’s hungry to be here and excited to be a Cat!
• Tee Martin at 11:29 – DB Cody Quinn signs LOI to join the #BBN #NationalSigningDay https://twitter.com/#!/TeeMartin17/status/164747254752743424/photo/1
• Tee Martin at 11:28 – OL Jordan Swindle signs LOI #BBN #NationalSigningDay https://twitter.com/#!/TeeMartin17/status/164746881052852225/photo/1
• Ben Jones at 11:26 – LB Kadeem Thomas and OL T.J. Jones both have their paperwork in to UK. S Sterling Wright will be the final member of the class.
• Jeff Drummond at 11:24 – Florida LB Kadeem Thomas has faxed his LOI to UK. 24 on board now.

Update: Scout has Kentucky ranked 12th in SEC and 35th overall.

On the eve of national signing day, Rivals ranks Kentucky’s expected class 14th out of 14 teams in the newly-expanded SEC.

Twelve of the league’s 14 teams rank in the top 50, with six ranked in the top 15.

Here is how the SEC stacks up according to Rivals:

• 1. Alabama (1)
• 2. Florida (4)
• 3. Texas A&M (9)
• 4. LSU (12)
• 5. Tennessee (13)
• 6. South Carolina (15)
• 7. Georgia (19)
• 8. Auburn (20)
• 9. Vanderbilt (23)
• 10. Arkansas (31)
• 11. Mississippi State (36)
• 12. Ole Miss (45)
• 13. Missouri
• 14. Kentucky

By the way, Rivals has Louisville’s class ranked 37th.

Big Blue Links for Wednesday deal with Kentucky’s game tonight with Tennessee, a 7 p.m. start at Rupp Arena on ESPNU. And many of those links deal with Terrence Jones, coming off a season-high 27 points in the Cats road win over LSU on Saturday. In fact, LSU coach Trent Johnson said Monday that if Jones plays like that, you might as well “crown” Kentucky as NCAA champs.

The question of course is whether Jones can produce the same kind of effort and numbers in back-to-back games. Just once in his two-year career has the sophomore scored 20-or-more points in back-to-back games. Last season, Jones scored 24 on the road in a loss to Georgia, then came home and scored a career-high 35 points in a win over visiting Auburn.

As for football, ESPN.com shines an off-season spotlight on Kentucky. And Mark Story writes on twins ready to sign with the Cats.

Continue reading ‘BBL: Can Kentucky’s Terrence Jones do it again?’

(H-L photo/Joseph Rey Au)

Big Blue Links for Monday:

• Jen Smith: Kentucky women hold off Florida rally to win 57-52
• Jen Smith’s notes: Florida holds Mathies in check
• Jack Brammer: Fan base develops with UK women’s winning ways
• Photos: Herald-Leader photo gallery from UK win over Florida
• T.J. Walker: It was a hard-fought win for the Cats over the Gators