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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 26, 2011Joker PhillipsKentucky: 10 JOKER PHILLIPS: The injury report? There is none. What an amazing game! How many‑‑ if we lined up the last 26 years, how many quarterbacks have we had, probably 15? Who would pick out Matt Roark as the guy who broke the streak? You know we had a few goals still left and I know a lot of people didn't consider these goals important but they are important to us. And that was to win our last game, we never talked about the streak but to end the streak, and to is send this bunch of seniors who have given so much to this University, to this program, to send those guys out the right way. At halftime up 3‑0, we talked about how much are you willing to give for a lifetime memory, and many don't understand that unless you've been in a huddle, been on a team, been amongst people that you really care about. We had started a tradition last year where I give all the seniors a chance to stand up and talk to their piers about what Kentucky football has meant to this them and every one of them, in the minute that they had talked about everybody in that room as being their brothers. So at the end I asked their brothers are they willing to fight, scratch and claw to give their big brothers a memory of a lifetime. And they were. You saw the results. The guys did a good job of following the plan‑‑ first of all our coaching staff did an unbelievable job of coming up with a plan and offensively we had‑‑ Matt did not see the plan until Tuesday; he did not see it until Tuesday. And that was as we were going over the plan on Sunday, late Sunday night and all day Monday, I asked the staff I said, "Don't you think we need to get him over here and talk to him about what we're going to do with him?" (Laughter.) But he had class, he had other obligations and that's what's important, and we stress that when we go into a kid's home and we're not about to veer off from what we think is important, and one thing we think is important is academics, so he did not see the plan until Tuesday morning. We practiced the plan Tuesday, we practiced the plan Wednesday, we practiced Thursday, wasn't a lot of‑‑ wasn't a lot of plays, as you can see, wasn't a lot of plays but the plan was to play for 4th down, try to get ourselves in 4th and shorts and possibly go for them, "grind it out" is one of the things that we were saying. And then when we had a chance to make an explosion play we got to make it, can't miss it. That was our plan offensively, defense was to make it as uncomfortable as we possibly could for the quarterback, and I thought our guys did a really good job of that. There was some encouraging things from a lot of young, first‑year players that, again, stepped up for their brothers. We knew that the seniors would come out and play emotional, because many of them it's their last game, but how much and how hard was their brothers willing to give up, how much were they willing to give up and they did an unbelievable job of having each other's backs. I was asked earlier about how much it meant to me to break the streak as the head coach. It doesn't mean much to me, it doesn't, to break the streak. What means more to me is the joy that those seniors, the memories that those guys will have, so that's what means more to me than anything. Questions? Q. (Away from mic.) JOKER PHILLIPS: It's an emotional game; we talked about that. You know, it's an emotional game, many of them can't play ‑‑ this is "it" this is the last time many of those‑‑ I don't know if they have a flag football league anymore, okay? Many of them will revert to playing softball, baseball, many of them will revert‑‑ they're all competitors, whether the people on the outside want to believe that or not, we're all competitors. That's what drives us. Many of them will play pick‑up basketball, many of them will not pick up a football again, many of them will not. That's why it's an emotional game. If you've ever played, if you've ever played, you get emotional when you know it's somebody's last game. You get emotional when you know it's somebody's last time they will ever play. You get emotional when you know how much these guys have put into this thing, last night many of them said 365 days a year. It is, it's 365 days a year that you have to be training, be into it mentally, so therefore, if you've ever played, you get emotional when you talk about somebody playing their last game. Q. When you told Matt he was going to start what was his reaction? JOKER PHILLIPS: Matt was‑‑ he was excited, you know, why not be? If you were a wide receiver and now you get a chance to touch the ball every snap, you know? Matt was excited about it. We looked like he did in high school, that's exactly what he looked like‑‑ somebody said coming out we are either the smartest or the dumbest coaching staff for putting him back there. He did an amazing job. We said to take care of the football, don't turn it over. We had way too many penalties. That was one of our goals. I know we had 5 at half, I think we had 5 or 6 after the half. Can't have penalties, can't have the 5‑yard penalties, which is what we were trying to stay away from. We couldn't push the ball down the field, we couldn't. We wanted to grind it out 3 here, 4 three, get ourselves into shorts to make a decision on whether we want to go for it or not. But he was excited about starting at quarterback. Somebody asked me what made me go with the decision. He was all we had. He was all we had. The rest of the guys could not protect themselves today. Q. What was that moment like‑‑ you talked about what it means to you, but right there at midfield I saw you wide eyed, the look on your face like‑‑ what was that moment like for you right then? JOKER PHILLIPS: It's a special‑‑ these are the Wildcat faithful, the wildest‑‑ it was one of the loudest I've ever seen it, even though we weren't at capacity. Those guys did a good job, had a lot to do with us winning today, with how loud and crazy you guys were. It was exciting to see the seniors out, but it was exciting to see the Wildcat faithful here and I appreciate them. Q. You have seen more talented players before this. Why was this group able to do what no team in 26 years had been able to do? JOKER PHILLIPS: I don't know. We took care of the football. In the past we have turned the football over. We've made some bone‑head plays, and we made some bone‑head plays today but we were able to turn it, and I don't know why. I think this group is close knit and every guy that stood up said "You are my brothers" and I think that's part of it. Q. (Away from mic.) JOKER PHILLIPS: They have, you know, and banged up on defense, also. There were some guys that went in the game similar to what Matt‑‑ had different roles, Dupree, all over the place. I looked out there one time and there was five freshmen, and it was like "Oh my goodness, five babies." Didn't phase them that we've lost 26 years in a row; they didn't know. Only thing they know is what they hear from you, you know, so they didn't know. Dupree is out there playing ball, bunch of young guys out there and you have enough older guys on defense that do understand this Tennessee/Kentucky series. So they was out there playing. The defense did a great job of stopping the run. You can't stop the run‑‑ again, I always talk about how demoralizing that is, and once you get them into the long‑down distance, you make it uncomfortable, and that's what they did. They made it uncomfortable for the quarterbacks. Q. When did you find out that the quarterbacks weren't going to go, and what did you think about that? JOKER PHILLIPS: Max got better every day and‑‑ Q. How are you doing? JOKER PHILLIPS: I'm good. Max got better every day and we kept thinking he would be able to go, but by the time we came to the realization, we done practiced this situation too long, so we had to go with it. We hadn't practiced any of the plays that Max could go in and execute. This is not his style, what we done today. So on Thursday we said, we think we need to go with Matt because this is all our team has practiced, and there was one time we were saying, "All right, Randy, let's run a post route and get the safety down," and he says "This is all he knows" and it was about 20 plays on it. "This is all he knows; if it's not on here, we can't run it." We had a couple of things that we could have taken advantage of, but we couldn't. Q. Did you have an "Oh crap" moment? JOKER PHILLIPS: No, I didn't, I had the "Oh crap" moment on Monday and Tuesday. We executed, we didn't give him a lot of things to think about, we just went up and played ball and that's what Matt was doing.                                                                                                                                                                      Q. Was what we saw in the past two weeks and particularly for today for folks that had begun to doubt the program, doubt you, is this what you want them to see and say this is why you should be patient? JOKER PHILLIPS: I mean, I'm not‑‑ I don't want to‑‑ I just think that this program is‑‑ again, we have a lot of good, young players in here that made plays today. Nobody is happy with the way the season‑‑ especially us, okay, especially us, because of all the hard work and long hours that we've put in it. We're not happy with the way it went, but we are willing to do whatever we have to do to get it corrected. Thank you guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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