|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 2, 2011Joker PhillipsCOACH PHILLIPS: Appreciate you guys being here. This is a big day in Kentucky football. This is our second class, our first full class. One thing that we have done is we have went out and identified what we have a profile of what we consider what is a successful student athlete is at Kentucky in football is, and No. 1 is character, second, we want a guy that truly wants to get a degree here, and the third thing is that a guy that has passion for the game of football and a guy that has passion not only for football but to play football here at Kentucky. And we worry about, and that only. We don't worry about how many stars a guy has. We don't worry about how many accolades a kid has. One thing we have done a really good job of here at Kentucky, and I commend Mark, a couple of days ago about, us being able to project, and I think if you look at this class today, we have done a really good job of projecting some of the future stars of Kentucky football and I'm going to challenge you guys in a few minutes, who is the next Burton, who is the next -- why don't you guy go out on a lime and write awe positive story about who you think the next Jacob Burton, Timmy Lyons, Simon Date, five, six years ago, there was talk not about him. The headlines did not read about Tim but the three guys at Kentucky that were headed out of state; they are playing in the Super Bowl. We don't worry about the star system. We worry about the guys that fit our profile about what we consider a guy that's going to help us consider here to win titles. This staff has done an outstanding job, the best staff I've been on, and that is including their wives. We are able to get a lot of mamas and daddies here. I thin that's important that when they see the family that here we have here at Kentucky. And the wives did an outstanding job of helping us close some deals this recruiting season. I told you guys my thoughts a few weeks ago when Randall announced of what I considered a guy that what you see guys that are identified as great recruiters. And I'll just give you guys an example. What I was at Notre Dame, 6-4, 215-pound linebacker, comes in as a freshman, he's over at my house one day for fourth of July. And my wife is watching TV one day and she sees a guy doing a Subway commercial. And he's now 290 pounds, a Pro Bowl player, he had none of those accolades that we were talking about, probably the last player that we talked to at Notre Dame and now he's a Pro Bowl player, and his name is Justin Tuck. That's a great recruiting job in my opinion. The Jeremy Darwin's (ph), that is a guy that we identified what our profile looked like, a guy that came in here and we developed here -- Randall Cobbs, he wasn't the name that everyone was writing about on signing day. Mark did an outstanding job with his story the other day and those are two guys that you talked about more than Randall Cobb, and Randall Cobb is a guy that's able to come out a junior. I think this staff and program has done a good job of developing this program. I want you guys to try to figure out who they are. We know who they are, guys that have got a chance to be the next Randall Cobbs, guys that have a chance to carry and introducing and guys that have a chance to lead this program. Once we identify what our profile is, what we have to do is now identify what our needs are. Our needs were at wide receiver. The thing this we looked at is size, speed, athleticism. We had a lot of production that walked out the door this year. We had to replace that. We were to replace that with a of true wide receivers. If you remember in 2007, we had our production then Kennan Burgess the Stevie Johnsons, another guy, came in here with no accolades, no stars. So we had to replace those guys in 2007 with five receivers that were signed in their class and only one that played five receivers. We had to go out and find quarterbacks that were great athletes to fulfill that need. Now, with where our program is, we have been able to fulfill that need with wide receivers. Mott only are they wide receivers, we were able to go out and get some guys, but they also are great returners. So we feel really good about that position. Other need was at running back. We were able to go out and get the top two running backs that we targeted. Very seldom is a program able to go out and do it. The two targets we were able to target he we were able to land. The thing we like about that, one of them commits, and he welcomes the other one. We were honest our process in telling those guys; we were going to sign two running backs. The thing we want is guys that are willing to compete for every position. And the first one commits; the thing that he said in his article was, "I welcome the other one." And that, to me, speaks volumes. That also sometimes scares the second one; it didn't scare the second one away. They wanted to come in here and compete. We need two running backs. That's what we want. We want guys that are excited about being here and excited about competing. Offensive line was another need the offensive line position we were able to attract the two offensive line pro specs in the State of Kentucky and also go out in the State of Florida and land another offensive line need of ours and we fulfilled it. The next need was long, lean athletes whether it be a defensive end, outside linebacker type of position. Then the next thing we wanted to do as go out and find the next best available players and we feel like we did a great job of that and went out and got the top athlete in the State of Illinois, who remembers when we have done that before; we have not. One of the best athletes in State of Louisiana, we got five of the top 90 players in the state or Georgia and three guys that were already here on campus, Max Smith, Tim Patterson and Jabari Johnson that signed with us last year. We are excited about this class. There some great players back here and one thing we have done is we have been in a place that's done a great job prospecting and we feel like we have projected more than in this class. In fact, there's more good projections in this class from top to bottom, strongest we have ever had and we are excited about it. Q. Inaudible. COACH PHILLIPS: One by one? Man. We just talked about it. The big names -- all of hem are big names, I can tell that you. They all are big name guys. I want you to tell me about the big name guys that you'll be writing about in four years -- (Laughter). See that's the problem. You guy read the paper too much. Maybe three years. There are guys in potential to be out of here and to be taking about the same story, you guys writing the same sorry you wrote a couple month ago. You guys tell me who the big name guys are -- I'll read your paper tomorrow. . I'll read your article. Q. James Elliot? COACH PHILLIPS: He's a guy that was committed to another school and the school changed head coaches and we walk in the school and we are also recruiting a linebacker from his school, Pensacola Catholic; good-looking kid who an inside player for us, who will be an inside guard that we needed that will give us depth at the position. Q. Talk about Davis -- COACH PHILLIPS: Look at these guys here. These guys here are not worried about the who guys who are not here. The only thing we care about are the guys that we want to be here. I learned that from Coach Jay Coburn a long time ago. The only ones you worry about are the ones who want to be here. You don't worry about the ones that signed six years ago away. We worry about what we have done for the -- we don't worry about the guys that went out of state and elsewhere. Q. Looks like a quarter of this recruiting class is from Kentucky. COACH PHILLIPS: Well, we got a start at home. We start in-state and we try to branch out. We have got to take care of home and branch out and fulfill what we consider our to profile and then try to the next available player out there. Q. One of those guys who had a chance to be second -- COACH PHILLIPS: We think so. We think so. We are not going to sign guys that we don't think has a chance to be special. We think he's one of the better athletes in this class. This is one of the first times that I've had a chance to go around. Last year as late as it was, I was not able to get around to every home and see every player, but this is the first time I was able to see every player on this list and as you went around and watched, these guys playing in jam or playing basketball, in a basketball game, or in the weight room lifting, I feel like this is from top to bottom, the most explosive group we have signed here, and Falcon (ph) is one of those guys. Coach has a comment, only thing that keeps him in the gym, him and a couple of these other guys, one of them is (inaudible) which is -- only thing that keeps him in the gym is the roof. These guys are the most explosive guys from top to bottom that we have recruited here. Q. You've got another athlete out of Alcoa, would it be unfair to this kid to compare him o to -- COACH PHILLIPS: I think one thing, it would be unfair to compare to anybody to Randall Cobb for what he's done here. But this kid is a fixed mode of what our profile looks like, a guy that has great character, a guy that wants to get a degree and a guy that is passionate about being here. As we talk to him, this is the place that we felt like that he wanted to be at, therefore, we couldn't pass up an opportunity to get another great player from a town like Alcoa. And we have -- he has never lost a championship. That's the thing we have to do; continue to recruit guys that understand what it takes to win championships, and that is a guy, has four in a row and he played as a ninth grader, if he plays as a sophomore. He has three in a row, not sure when he's played, but he's never played on a team that didn't win a championship. Q. Anyone on the board surprise you that you were able to get, at least you felt with you are not sure, but you glad you got -- COACH PHILLIPS: You're never sure. We are just excited, the thing that I'm excited about that these guys committed to us, stuck with it and we are excited to have them here. Q. Can you just talk about the recruiting game in general? I know you got a couple of kids and lost some kids, has it changed? COACH PHILLIPS: It has definitely changed and you guys have changed it more than anyone. It's the way of life. You see as with pass across the TV watching ESPN today, we see all the hat tricks and dog tricks and whatever people are doing, and that's what changed it more than anything, saying you guys; but TV has changed it, and really, the me I can't, all of those thing that changed it. LeBron changed it. I mean, let's get real, he changed it, too. Q. You have two quarterback in this class, how do you think they fit and are you still talking to anyone else? COACH PHILLIPS: We are not talking to any other quarterbacks. Max Smith was able to come in for five practices and many of you got a chance to see him. We are excited about him. He has a really live arm and nice size. He's a relentless worker what we are hearing from the weight room. We are excited about him. Could be is one of the best athletes in the States of Louisiana and he's a guy that we star get early. He's a guy that committed to us early, stayed with us, a lot of people were tugging at him and a lot of BCS teams were tugging at him and he stuck to his commitment and we were excited to have him. Q. Next year on the field -- COACH PHILLIPS: We are going to try to find out as many as we can who can help us early. That's hard to say because a lot of things go into it; size, strength, maturity mentally. So we have to try to find out as fast as we possibly can and make the decision somewhere in the middle of training camp. But the thing we have is the opportunity to get them all here early. So that gives our strength and conditioning people to give them two months to get them to compete for positions in fall camp. Q. Inaudible. COACH PHILLIPS: Last time we done that -- we feel really, really good about -- 2007, I did a study of how many of our guys had BCS offers. Michael was one and Andre Woodson. Those were the only two that had BCS offers. You look at this class, here, and majority of these groups, these kids have BCS offers. We are now going toe to toe with a lot of teams in recruiting; whereas when we first got here, we couldn't. We couldn't do that. We had to go out and project a lot of different players that weren't heavily recruited. These guys all had great offers. Darryl Collins is one of those guys, another explosive athlete that we think can be a guy that has played in some of the wildcat package and he's played receiver and he's played some quarterback in his career. So we feel good about his -- he's played some slot and outside receiver so we are excited about getting him in the fold, also. Q. What do you like about your receivers in general? COACH PHILLIPS: It toughness. We came here and ran one of the fastest times in camp of this summer. A tough guy that comes from a program that breeds toughness, a guy that knows how to win and one of those great-character kids that has a passion to be here. Q. How about the receivers in general? COACH PHILLIPS: We have got a lot of athletes that have the potential to be wide receivers. Like I say, we went out and tried to find size, some athleticism, to replace all of the production that we were losing last year. We had to go out and find true wide receivers, guys that really truly understand the position. You guys felt my pain three years ago when we brung in those five guys that were learning on the run. They had to. They had to learn on the run. They do not always know even how to get in the stands because they have always been in the stands or this stance as a quarterback. Every one of our receivers have been true wide receivers. Their learning curve in learning our offense won't take as long as the guys that we had in Randall's class, say, all of those guys that never lined up at the position. These guys lined up at the position and they know the link go and they now have to plug our lingo in that lingo that they have been using but they know most of the wide receiver lingo. They know what sticking around is. They know those things and we feel good about those guys being able to come in here and play for us. Q. Do you worry about Jamarius? A lot of people looked at linebackers as a big need position. COACH PHILLIPS: We think we can. All of these guys up here, we don't have -- they don't have an opportunity to come in -- they can help us, similar to last year's group. We are going t find out as quickly as we positively can, I was able to watch him run up and down the basketball court last week and just watching how he carried himself, he's a guy that will be a good player around here. Q. So focusing on the guys that maybe didn't come to Kentucky, but you have two local kids, offensive linemen who are nationally-ranked. Talk about those two guys. COACH PHILLIPS: When we lineup next year, four of our five offensive linemen will be Kentuckians and these guys fit the mold. They are athletic, a guy that can play center of the guard position, another kid we think will be an outside edge guy and they are excited about both of those kids. Q. Inaudible. COACH PHILLIPS: Bubba is a guy that's a jack of all trades. In one game he turned three, power punts and -- a lot of the wide receivers, he's played in the wildcat package offense, tremendous athlete and played in the state championship, sweet 16 in basketball and just a tremendous athlete. Q. You talked about Randall Cobb, he would be one of the smaller quarterbacks, shorter, I should say that you guys have had in a long time. COACH PHILLIPS: First of all, his knowledge of the position. He has great knowledge of the position and he walked into his school and everybody -- he's one of though guys similar to Randall Cobb, everybody likes, respects and he can manage their respect when you meet him and he's got a live arm, very athletic and can get himself out of trouble and when he gets himself out of trouble, he has a chance to stick to for a touchdown and can go 70, 80 yards. So we are excited about getting him. He's one of the better athletes in Louisiana. We were able to go down last week and he was headed to a track meet and he was one of the leaders of the track team also. Q. Inaudible. COACH PHILLIPS: He will be a quarterback for us. Q. Where would you rank as a player -- COACH PHILLIPS: I think from top to bottom, we are talking about athleticism and ability to make plays, talk about production, Robinson is one of the all-time leading receivers in the State of Georgia single-season in the State of Georgia, so we feel about good that this is as good as we have had here at Kentucky. Q. What message for fans, because there were a couple of high-pro five -- COACH PHILLIPS: Don't be. Don't be. Trust us. Like I say, we have put together some classes that you guys have been excited about; y'all would be even more excited about this class we have put together this week. Q. Inaudible. COACH PHILLIPS: You guys have seen the lottery -- Ashley is an amazing, amazing person. He really dominated the region that he plays in. He was -- hate to say this, but he beat coach par due and got him out of the business. But Lowery is a great person and has the -- the thing that you look at, his upside, body types. He fits that body type upside that we are looking for. He's got -- he's one of those, also, those explosive guys that we talked about and if you look at it, jumping over people, he tried to it again and he said that they threw a flag on him the second time. He said, I had a couple opportunities to keep doing it but it was illegal. I didn't know that it was illegal in that league but it is. He's just a guy that can play a number of positions with start being off at safety and watch and see what he turns out to be. I really think safety is his position that he'll start off in. Q. Obviously you are looking for athleticism when you are, how much does character play a role? COACH PHILLIPS: That's the first thing we said. Our profile starts with character. We think a guy with work will improve every day when the coaches are not watching. We are starting to bring those type of guys we wanted and that's all we ever wanted, guys that have character and will work their butts off when the coaches are not looking. Q. Inaudible. COACH PHILLIPS: We are pretty relaxed but also -- until the last one came about but right now we are excited about this class and I am ready to go to work. I cannot wait until August. I cannot wail until early June when could he tomorrow on campus and able work out and us have an opportunity work with them in August. Everybody is a part of this team. This staff is relentless. We get a kid on campus and our coaches are like pirañas; they do a real give job of feeding information, which that can make them feel wanted and make them feel like a part of this football family. Q. You touched on David Washington -- COACH PHILLIPS: Well, David is a guy that could play with the nose, and he also could go out and play in the three-four. He was 275, but in our camp he was 292 and when he came on campus last week -- so, and then personality-wise, he's what you're looking for. He's a guy that will own the locker room and take control of the locker room and he'll be one of the leaders ] immediately when he steps on campus. Q. A little bit of a stir last year when you signed Patterson and you had to wait on him. Talk about the impact he might be able to make. COACH PHILLIPS: Tim is one of those, when we talked about long, lean athletes he has been on campus and was able to come in for the five days and then four days after that so he got a total of nine days with us. It was really more of rehabbing to try to get him a jump start on being able to compete for spring. And now he's in our off-season conditioning, a program he came in at 215 and he's already up to 224. Again we wanted to sign long, lean athletes and put them in our weight program and watch and see what they turn out to be. Q. How much did you have to change your recruiting patterns for the style of athlete? COACH PHILLIPS: We have not changed much in this recruiting class. We are start talking about that here next week. We will try to get -- on the outside of our linebacking positions. So I mean, but we didn't change much this year and continue to recruit to the 4-3 system. Q. Talking about how much media and LeBron has changed the game. Does that make it tougher in a lot of aspects to do the recruiting? COACH PHILLIPS: It's going to be tough regardless if that was going on or not. I mean, the thing that -- made it entertaining for us. We sat back and laughed at some of the things, but it's just made it tougher -- inaudible -- I can tell you that right now. Q. What about Josh -- COACH PHILLIPS: Another one of those explosive athletes that when you guys have seen at sweet 16 and basketball, he was an eighth grader playing on the high school basketball team, as a ninth grader playing on the sweet 16, has a chance to be one of the -- in the sweet 16 this year, he's the No. 1 player down there in that region. That tells you he's a great football. Picked up football last year, a couple of state championships, a couple touchdowns to win the game and had an outstanding year this year. Again, tall, long, lean, athletic explosive, we can't sign enough of those. I was with Coach (indiscernible) -- in Cincinnati, and Coach really changed the way I recruited when I left here the first time. When I went to Cincinnati and saw what we had in place there, it really changed the way I recruit. It really did. An actual, lean athlete, bring them into your program, feed them some food with supplements and substances and watch them grow and see what he goes into be. When we got Cincinnati, we had seven draft picks so that's the thing that we want do is try to find those long, lean athletes and then try to find as many long, lean athletes as you can. Q. Looking at football players -- guys that play basketball, how many of those guys have you seen? COACH PHILLIPS: That can play for Cal, none. (Laughter). We got some guys, like I say, inaudible -- real explosive basketball player, Josh Faulker, those are the three guys that I watched play basketball this recruiting season that we feel Las the athleticism, explosiveness to be a great football player. Q. Do you see them getting the walk-on? COACH PHILLIPS: They are not that explosive, I can tell that you. Q. You talked earlier about a couple of kids -- but on your list, who are the kids who maybe their home state team was in -- maybe got away and went to Kentucky? COACH PHILLIPS: I'm hoping they say that about all of them but I can't say that. But like I say, you've got some football players from out of state and we have got five other top 90 guys in Georgia. We have got the best athlete in Illinois, one of the best athletes in Louisiana, so I'm hoping that every state that we were able to attract people from is saying that. Q. Is there a best class -- COACH PHILLIPS: It does. Especially in the wide receiver, DB position and running back, that's where you better be fast at, the two running backs, if you guys got a chance to see the two running backs but they both have outstanding speed and we were age to get those fast, wide receivers, we were able to get some size to put on the outside at wide receiver. So their speed in this position -- and day Monday haul is one of the guys that ran as fast as anybody four camp. Q. Is long and lean -- COACH PHILLIPS: You'd like to. You would like to have long, lean guys to bring those type of guys in the offensive line, too, and what's what the Miller kid; one of those long and lean, 280 pounds, and that's what we are looking for. He's 280 pounds and athletic and long. In a year, two, we project him to be a 310-pound offensive lineman, and you have a 310-pound offensive lineman, he's long but he's not lean any more, and he's athletic. Q. In terms of numbers of kids that -- COACH PHILLIPS: I think it has changed a little bit in the number. It's always been that a lot of the skill guys could play but now you see more of a defensive line and linebackers playing early. But it's always been that skill guys could play early. Now it's changed that the big guys and the way that they have advanced in the weight room than they were back in our day. Q. Have you made any inroads -- inaudible -- talking about making Cincinnati a priority. COACH PHILLIPS: We are still. If you look at the list, we didn't land any Ohio kids, but that is still a place that we want to target and where we want to treat like Penn State. Didn't land any of those guys, but will continue recruit to the Cincinnati, Daytona, Columbus area. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|