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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 6, 2010

Joker Phillips

COACH PHILLIPS: Injury situation, Ronnie Sneed his shoulder has a stinger in his shoulder, and wasn't able to finish the game. He came out in the first quarter. Josh Gibbs had a hip flexor and he also did not finish after the first. Nick went in and covered one kick, couldn't finish. Neloms got his ankle stepped on, and he came out in the fourth quarter. And Donald Russell got rolled up and hurt his back in the second quarter. So that's the injuries, so all of them should be back next week.
But one of the things we talked about is playing clean. We did not play clean. In the first half we -- sudden change is one of our plans to win, and we turned the ball over on downs. That's considered a turnover, and that's my fault. That's me being selfish, it was.
Probably should have kicked the ball and played field position, but that's a sudden change. It's like a turnover and two plays later they're in the end zone. We've got to do a better job when we do turn it over.
Next time we turn the ball in the end zone, and I was just informed that we have turned the ball and thrown an interception in the end zone three times in the last two weeks. So we can't do that. They go back down the field with that sudden change and go 80 yards, that can't happen.
Time of possession 40 to 20. And you look at that first and you think no, it can't be. But at halftime it was 20-10, something like that almost 20-10, correct? And we gave up a couple of big plays on defense, and the offense turned the ball over two times. Can't do it, you cannot do it and survive in this league.
The thing you can't do is you can't go three weeks without creating turnovers on defense, and we have not created a turnover. Our offense created one but it was after a turnover last week. So we've got to play a lot cleaner to win next week. Any questions?

Q. Was it hard to get them fired up and ready this week?
COACH PHILLIPS: You know, I didn't think it was hard to get them ready because our guys were -- I thought they were raring to go. We had really good practices.
You start thinking the weather changes, you start thinking well, it's going to be hard to get them going today. It wasn't. It wasn't. I told you guys after practice I thought our guys played in practice really well. The attitude was good. There was a lot of enthusiasm. So I felt we were ready to go.
Then you kickoff, our kickoff team -- usually you can judge this football team how their kickoff team covers kicks, and our first kickoff our guys ran down like their hair was on fire. That told me that our football team was ready to play.
Gave up a couple of big plays, and then offensively we don't get the fourth down. Then they converted, and I think that kind of took the wind out of our sail a little bit. But we battled back.
The thing is we didn't play clean. We didn't play fast at times but we won the football game.

Q. What did you think of Russell's performance?
COACH PHILLIPS: He played good. He got the ball in the end zone. He made some big time runs. Both backs made some runs and they missed some runs, but he did what he had to do in this game. That is to hang on to the football and possess the ball at the end of each run and get positive yards.

Q. Your decision or Locke's decision not to play?
COACH PHILLIPS: His decision. If he can play, he'll play. He just didn't feel like if he could protect the football and also protect himself. Locke really wants to play, but Locke really doesn't want to hurt this football team also.

Q. Can you assess the overall performance of the defense today and how you felt they played?
COACH PHILLIPS: We've got to make sure that we don't give up as many big plays. This football team that we just played put out a lot of trick plays on us. The thing we have to do is make sure if it's man-to-man coverage, stay on your guy.
They ran a sprint out throw back that it looks like a run, yes, it does. But your job is not to stop the run. Your job is to cover your man all over the field, regardless of what happens until the ball crosses the line of scrimmage.
We gave up the big play on that. We gave up a couple big runs with the quarterback. But they got stops when we needed them, that's the thing. They got stops when we needed them. But I think we've got to do a better job of creating turnovers, and we haven't created one in the last three weeks.

Q. That was the first snap ever recorded by that quarterback.
COACH PHILLIPS: I never saw that. I had to check the roster to see. I mean, he had never lined up at quarterback that we had seen. He obviously was in the game to run the football, and he's a good athlete, and he did a good job of running their offense. It was really their wildcat package really is what it was.
It was something that we had seen because we had seen it in practice every day, and that is their wildcat package.

Q. Are you pleased with where you are?
COACH PHILLIPS: Hey, I'm .500. Yes, I'm pleased. We're 5 and 5, with two games left. A home game next week in our league, and senior day for guys. You know, about 16 guys that have been around here for a long time. Some that haven't been around here for a long time, it will be an emotional week for those guys, and we'll try to feed off of that.

Q. You said you need to get some momentum. Is this the kind of win?
COACH PHILLIPS: This is what we're talking about. We need this momentum, we need this feeling. We've been in this locker room for five out of the last six weeks that we haven't had this feeling.
So I think this is the momentum that we need to carry us through the rest of the season.

Q. Are you planning on splitting the reps at running back with Russell and Williams?
COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, that's what we had planned to do to play both of those guys. Once Donald -- we were going to go two and one, one series, two series. But once Donald got rolled up from behind on the kickoff return, we decided to give them split reps or split series.
I thought both of them did a good job of getting the ball in the end zone and taking care of the ball first of all, and getting the ball in the end zone.

Q. Did you play the back-ups as much as you wanted to?
COACH PHILLIPS: No, you never play them as much as you want to. I would have liked to have seen everybody get in the game. I would have liked to have played a little bit more. Liked to have gotten a chance to get Moss in the game. but we weren't able to.

Q. Is it too early to say whether Locke will play (no microphone)?
COACH PHILLIPS: It's way too early. We'll have to see tomorrow. Again, both of those guys will be day-to-day. We'll see tomorrow if they can give us anything. Then just throughout the week, the same deal. It's been like that for about two weeks with Locke, so we'll see.

Q. Was there ever a time that you looked at the scoreboard in second quarter in a tie game (no microphone)?
COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, definitely. You know, you can't -- you felt like you had control, but you didn't have control. But when you look at the scoreboard it didn't say it.
We felt like just get a stop here and there, don't turn the ball over. We felt like we could score points. But, yeah, it was a time to look up at the scoreboard and say that.

Q. Did you get momentum because you played well or just a matter that you won?
COACH PHILLIPS: Both, both. We played a lot better longer. But also the fact that you won, I think can you get a lot of things corrected in a different way with the win.

Q. Can you talk about Daniel-- what continues to impress you with his play?
COACH PHILLIPS: The speed. You very seldom see Danny Trevathan. What is frustrating is when we're in position to make plays and you don't make plays. That is the frustrating part of battles on defense, you know.
When Danny Trevathan is in position to make plays, he makes the play. He runs his feet, he runs through people, not to people, first of all. Then when you see Danny Trevathan hit people, they go backwards.
A lot of it has to do with the way he runs. He's one of our faster guys on defense, and really smart football player.
Last week we were getting some of the other guys a lot of reps because he was a little beat up, and just watching him on the sideline talking to our young linebackers about their assignments. That tells me that it allows Daniel Trevathan, to play as fast as he's playing, he knows what the hell's going on. He does. He knows everything that's going on with this defense. So it allows him to play faster than a lot of our other guys.

Q. Seems like Craig McIntosh does a good job (Indiscernible) the direction of the kicking really help the team?
COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, it does help. We wanted to see this. We challenged our kickoff coverage team also. We've gotten really excited about how E.J. Fields covered last week, so we moved -- E.J. actually went in and covered in the position that Matt Roark had been in.
And Matt Roark has been a beast on the kickoff coverage team, so it allowed us to move someone else off the team that weren't covering as well. Put E.J. Fields back in there and insert Matt Roark. We thought that Brian Adams was playing good on that same team.
So the thing we wanted to do is keep the ball in play. I wasn't interested in kicking the ball in the end zone; I wanted to see these guys covered. Because that sets the tempo and that shows the attitude of the football team in how you cover kickoffs, and I wanted to see those guys cover. I thought they did an outstanding job.
Each guy on our sidelines was picking out a guy who they thought was going to make the play and telling the other guy. Hey, I've got Matt Roark this time or I've got Brian Adams.
So we wanted to challenge our kickoff cover team, and they did, and they did. They covered outstanding which I think tells us the attitude of your football team.

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