Kentucky sports and beyond.
Post-practice video today of UK coach Joker Phillips, who gives the injury report, talks about the quarterbacks and his tight ends. Kentucky plays visiting Tennessee at 12:21 p.m. on the SEC Network at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday. You may have heard, Tennessee has beaten UK 26 straight years in football.
Jarnell Stokes
Touted Memphis basketball prospect Jarnell Stokes, who has taken an official visit to Kentucky, doesn’t have a place to play his senior high school season. His hardship appeal was denied by the Tennessee high school athletics association board of control on Monday. He had been ruled ineligible after transferring from one school to another.
The Memphis Commerical Appeal quotes Stokes’ father, Willie, as saying it is possible his son might graduate from high school early and enroll in college in January. ”It’s an option,” said Willie Stokes. “He’s an honor student; he’s been taking honors classes all this time. We haven’t seriously discussed him to college mid-year but that is a possibility. We will discuss those things (Monday night).”
The future was at least part of the discussion at Kentucky’s weekly football press luncheon today. There were questions about whether there is talent inside the program to turn things around. With Randall Cobb, Mike Hartline, Derrick Locke and Chris Matthews all departed from last year’s team, UK had to know that finding playmakers might be a problem. But did Phillips think it would be this much of a problem?
“We definitely don’t have the speed that we had the past couple of years to stretch the field,” Phillips said today. “But we’ve gotten behind people, too. You don’t have to have great speed to get behind people. We have made some plays down the field. The thing that we are lacking is the guy to throw screen, or a five-yard play to and he turns it into a 50-yard play. That’s what we’re lacking.
Continue reading ‘Phillips on UK’s lack of playmakers, plus player videos’
It was a newsy post-practice session with Kentucky football coach Joker Phillips on Thursday. He said the injured Ridge Wilson would probably not make the trip to Vanderbilt on Saturday. He confirmed that quarterback Morgan Newton is in Indianapolis getting a second opinion on his injured shoulder and high ankle sprain. Newton was scheduled to be back in Lexington on Thursday afternoon. Phillips was also asked about the firing of Joe Paterno.
Here’s the video.
Continue reading ‘Video: Phillips on Ridge Wilson and Morgan Newton’
After practice today, UK football coach Joker Phillips gave an injury report and talked about the team’s practice in attitude after the win over Ole Miss on Saturday. Phillips said the team has always practiced hard, even during the losing streak. He complimented the coaches. He also talked about the development of the offensive line. The health and experience has helped the line pick up the pace, which no doubt has been a major factor in the progress over the offense the past six quarters.
Kentucky plays Vanderbilt this Saturday at 12:21 p.m. in Nashville. The game will be telecast by the SEC Network.
Here’s the video.
Continue reading ‘Video: Phillips on practice and his offensive line’
(H-L photo/Ken Weaver)
Red Cup Rebellion, the Ole Miss blog on the Sports Nation network, is reporting that Houston Nutt has been fired as Ole Miss coach, according to sources. There has been no other confirmation of this, but it would certainly not be a surprise. Mississippi’s 30-13 loss to Kentucky was the Rebels’ 12th straight SEC defeat. After a game with Louisiana Tech next week, the Rebels play host to LSU. So a 13th straight appears a certainity. Then Ole Miss finishes up with the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State.
Not many juicy tidbits from this morning’s Kentucky football practice. Morgan Newton is still hobbled. CoShik Williams couldn’t finish practice. Maxwell Smith looked good. Jennifer Smith has a list of notes.
Here’s the post-practice video with Coach Joker addressing the media horde, which today was a bit smaller in number.
Continue reading ‘Video: Joker Phillips’ post-practice report for Wednesday’
The first 4:30 of Joker Phillips’ press conference with media after the Cats dropped to 3-5 overall and 0-4 in the SEC.
Full transcript of Joker Phillips’ press conference after UK’s 28-16 loss to Mississippi State.
Opening statement
COACH PHILLIPS: The injury situation is Morgan Newton has a right shoulder and right ankle. Looks like it’s a high ankle sprain. We’ll take a look at it tomorrow. After the half, he thought he could go back in, but we were just afraid of him not being able to protect himself. So did not put him back in.
Anthony Mosley during the scuffle got punched in the diaphragm and missed the first half. It was after the first or second touchdown.
Then (Donte) Rumph has a left knee. That’s the injury situation.
Hard‑fought game. Defensively three turnovers that they created, and no turnovers that we gave up offensively usually equals a win. I think we were like 5‑0 when we hadn’t turned the football over. We actually got three. You got to explain you’re playing to win to your football team when you create that many turnovers and don’t give up any and not win.
Well, it’s easy. It’s simple. Too many big plays that we gave up. It was three 80‑yard drives. If you talk about the drive chart, we talked about that this week, it’s hard for people to drive on anyone, and we gave up three of them today. A lot of them came with big plays. When you drive 80 yards, there’s usually some big plays involved.
In one of the 80 yards, there were four plays, so it’s got to be big plays. We gave up a big play, a big pass, touchdown in the end zone.
Then offensively we had a chance for short fields with the turnovers that the defense gave us, and we only got six points out of it. Then we got the ball down again in the second half and only got three, which gives us nine points.
Continue reading ‘Transcript of Phillips’ press conference after loss to MSU’
Joker Phillips discusses UK’s injury situation and Mississippi State after Thursday’s practice.
