John Clay's Sidelines

Off the top of my shiny head:

- Let’s not go overboard on Tee Martin. He is a good young coach with a reputation for being a top recruiter, but he’s not Gus Malzahn, much less Bill Walsh. If he was such a dynamite recruiter, why did the recruiting gurus at Rivals place Kentucky 14th out of 14 in the SEC on signing day. If Martin is top-shelf, then the rest of Joker Phillips’ staff must be abysmal at bringing in talent. And I don’t think that’s the case.

This probably reads like I don’t like Tee. I do like Tee. What I don’t like is this doom-and-gloom stance some Kentucky football fans have taken over Martin’s departure, and that this is just one more crack in Joker Phillips’ crumbling wall. I have no doubt Kentucky tried its best to keep Martin, because to be honest I thought Mitch Barnhart and Co. went overboard in that regard last year when the media got wind that Alabama and Nick Saban might, might be interested in Martin. The promotion, salary and four-year contract seemed a bit much for someone who (at that time) had been a coach at an FCS school for all of two years.

And I believe less than half of what I heard or read from the jilted school once the coach has departed for his new destination. There is always tons of post-game spin, on both sides. Case in point: Back in 1990, Kentucky tried to hire Mike Shanahan as its head football coach. Jerry Caliborne had just retired. Shanahan was back as an assistant with the Denver Broncos after being fired as head coach of the Oakland Raiders. UK AD C.M. Newton thought he had talked Shanahan into the job to the point where he even sent a plane to Arizona to pick up the coach after a Broncos game. The plan was to bring him back to Lexington and announce him as head coach. In the meantime, Shanahan declined the job. Newton ended up hiring Bill Curry, a hire that looked great at the time and turned out to be far from great.

Continue reading ‘More thoughts on job spinning and Tee Martin’

Tee Martin (H-L photo)

For Kentucky football, the downside is you are losing a good football coach, one with the reputation of being an excellent recruiter.

The upside is that you lost Tee Martin to Southern Cal.

Not Southern Methodist or Southern Miss or Southwestern Whatever State. You lost him to Southern Cal.

You had a coach on your staff that one of the traditional national powers, a team that could well win the BCS title next year, wanted on its staff.

If you thought that Kentucky’s wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator should have declined Lane Kiffin’s offer to join the Trojans, then you’re not living in the real football world. From a career standpoint, this was a no-brainer. Martin had no choice. He had to say yes.

Continue reading ‘Phillips task is to find another coach a power will want’

All that talk about Tee Martin returning to his alma mater Tennessee? The Kentucky assistant said Saturday, “I’m here,” and it appears that here is where he is staying.

Vols’ coach Derek Dooley announced today that he has hired former Tennessee running back Jay Graham to coach UT’s backs. Graham was the running backs/tight ends coach for Steve Spurrier at South Carolina.

“Jay is not only one of the most accomplished running backs in Tennessee history, but he has also proven to be one of the top running backs coaches in the SEC,” said Dooley in a Tennessee release. “Jay understands what it means to be a Vol, and we are thrilled to have him on our staff.”

Graham replaces wide receivers coach Charlie Baggett, who announced he would not return next season. It was Baggett’s departure that led to speculation that Martin, who quarterbacked Tennessee to the national championship as a player, would return to Knoxville.

Continue reading ‘Vols hire an assistant and it’s not Tee Martin’

(H-L photo)

Were you a sour soul, you could make the argument that we are all making too much of Kentucky’s offensive performance in the Cats’ 10-7 history-bending win over Tennessee on Saturday. (“Our worst fears realized,” said the losing coach, Derek Dooley, afterward.)

After all, Kentucky gained a grand total of 217 yards of offense. The Cats threw for a ridiculous total of 15 yards. And the Cats still won the game.

Unless you live in a cave, you know that Kentucky did so with a wide receiver playing quarterback. That would be Matt Roark, who may have songs written about him in the near future.

But Roark had three men behind him. One was head coach Joker Phillips, who signed off on the plot. One was Randy Sanders, the offensive coordinator, who devised a game plan. One was wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator Tee Martin who helped guide Roark, who he had coached in high school, through the week.

My one regret from my Sunday column was I did not include the Sanders quote:

I told our guys yesterday and again today: The one thing that can’t be taken from you is memories. You can lose your health, you can lose your wealth, you can lose a lot of things, but you never lose your memories. So we had a chance to go out and make a memory today, and it’s a memory I’m going to remember for a long time.

Click the continue line to see the post-game videos of Sanders and Martin.
 
Continue reading ‘The architects behind UK’s offensive game plan Saturday’

Saturday’s Kentucky-LSU game includes several coaching ties between the two staffs.

LSU quarterbacks coach Steve Kragthorpe was Louisville’s head coach from 2007-2009. He was 0-3 against Kentucky during that time.

LSU secondary coach Ron Cooper was Louisville’s head coach from 1995-1997. His team beat UK 13-10 in ’95 and 38-14 in ’96. It lost to the Cats 38-24 in ’97 and Cooper was replaced at the end of a 1-10 season by John L. Smith.

UK assistant Greg Nord was an assistant under both Cooper and Kragthorpe at U of L.

UK offensive coordinator Randy Sanders and LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis worked together for 15 years as assistants under Phil Fulmer at Tennessee.

Sanders and Chavis were assistants on the 1996 Tennesee national championship team quarterbacked by Tee Martin, who is now Kentucky’s wide receivers coach.

As for the head coaches, Joker Phillips said he doesn’t know Les Miles well, aside from their dealings in various SEC coaches meetings. Miles was an assistant in the Midwest and the Dallas Cowboys before becoming head coach at Oklahoma State.

“I know he’s done a good job of keeping players in Louisiana,” Phillips said.

Aaron Boyd

(Videos after the jump.)

In now his fourth year on campus, Aaron Boyd has caught all of five passes. Saturday, when Central Michigan comes to Commonwealth Stadium, and with UK’s receivers suffering a chronic case of the drops, Boyd will get to add to that total.

A four-star recruit out of Henry Clay High School in Lexington, the brother of former UK quarterback Shane Boyd has been a disappointment. He has good size for a receiver, but not separation speed. His attitude has been questioned, something that prompted Rich Brooks to sit Boyd down for the entire 2009 season.

He returned last season, not that you would have noticed. Boyd played in just four games and did not catch a pass. When the first depth chart came out for 2011, the junior was nowhere to be found among the two-deep. But with UK receivers growing butterfingers last Thursday, former receivers coach Joker Phillips and current receivers coach Tee Martin are ready to give Boyd a shot.

Click the continue line to see videos of Boyd and Martin talking after today’s practice.

Continue reading ‘Aaron Boyd will get a chance to turn it around Saturday’

After this morning’s practice, Kentucky football coach Joker Phillips announced that freshman wide receiver Daryl Collins is out for the year with a torn ACL. Though Phillips has stayed away from naming individual freshmen who will contribute this season, most felt Collins was in the mix for playing time at that position.

Here is wide receivers coach Tee Martin talking about the loss of Collins, a 5-foot-11, 203-pounder from Gadsen, Alabama.

(H-L photo)

Keeping Tee Martin in the Kentucky football fold with a contract extension and the new title of passing game coordinator has been termed as “huge.”

Wrote Kentucky Sports Report’s Brian Eldridge for Wildcat Blue Nation, “Kentucky had to show a commitment to the football program and re-up Martin’s contract, even though he saw his contract upgraded just several weeks ago. Joker Phillips and AD Mitch Barnhart stepped in and made the necessary move to keep the up-and-coming coach on staff.”

My take: When backed into a corner, sometimes you have to overpay.

This has nothing to do with Tee Martin and his coaching abilities, or his recruiting prowess. It has everything to do with giving a new contract, a hefty raise (to $400,000-a-year reportedly) and enhanced job title to someone who has been a Division I college football assistant coach for two years.

That’s right, two years. In 2006, Martin was the passing game coordinator for Morehouse College. In 2007 and 2008 he was out of coaching, serving as an analyst for Comcast Sports Southeast. In 2009, he was quarterbacks coach on Mike Locksley’s staff at New Mexico. Martin joined UK last year as wide receivers coach.

Continue reading ‘Is keeping Tee Martin a “huge” deal for UK football?’

Tee Martin

Before today’s basketball game with Georgia, Kentucky head football coach Joker Phillips announced that wide receivers coach Tee Martin has been promoted to “passing game coordinator.”

Phillips announced that Martin has received a contract extension and raise, but would not discuss specifics of a new contract for the former Tennessee quarterback.

There were unconfirmed reports that Martin was a finalist for the wide receivers job at Alabama. But Martin said that while he was contacted by a couple of schools to see about possible interest, the coach said he never interviewed with another school for another position.

Phillips called Martin “a relentless recruiter,” and said that as passing game coordinator, Martin would be responsible for passing game schemes and would head up passing drills in practice.

Martin joined the UK staff this past season after being on the staff at New Mexico.

(H-L photo/David Perry)

Big Blue Links for Wednesday:

• Kentucky shows grit in its 74-67 win over Washington, reports Jerry Tipton of the Herald-Leader.
• Washington comes up short against the Cats, reports Percy Allen of the Seattle Times.
• Seattle Times photo gallery from Kentucky-Washington game.
• Kentucky wins a rollicking battle with the Huskies, writes Chad Ford of espn.com.
• UK’s appeal of Enes Kanter ruling will be heard the first week of December, reports Tipton.
• Tee Martin hopes his road back to Knoxville leads to a Kentucky victory, reports Chip Cosby of the Herald-Leader.
• It’s not just another road trip for Martin, writes Mike Strange of the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
• Not even an earthquake could stop the Cats in Hawaii, writes Brett Dawson of the Courier-Journal.
• No love lost between Cats and Huskies, reports Matt May of the Cats Pause.
• Tom Leach has video of John Calipari’s post-game press conference.

Continue reading ‘BBL: Linking up Kentucky’s win over Washington’