Coming off yet another loss last week, this time to Mississippi State, the Cats actually improved in some areas that had recently plagued them.

The passing game managed to complete passes to eight different receivers. Senior wide receiver Matt Roark alone had 13 catches for 116 yards, a career high.

After junior quarterback Morgan Newton was hurt early in the game, freshman quarterback Maxwell Smith stepped up to the challenge and was efficient in leading the Cats down the field on multiple drives. He had struggled earlier this season in the game against South Carolina and Lousiana State, but looked like a completely different player, as he went 26 for 33 and 174 yards.

His ability to find his receivers and make a couple of tough throws, while being pressured, were qualities that stood out.

For the offense, it was the second-best performance of the season, behind the game against Jacksonville State.

Still, some areas need improving.

1. Offensive Play Calling

With the blackout having the fans and players as excited as they may have been all season, UK head coach Joker Phillips decided to take a chance on a fourth-down punt in the first quarter. The ball was snapped and Ryan Tydlacka sprinted toward the right side of the field and up the sideline, picking up the first down in the process. It seemed that weeks of frustration by the fan base was going to change with that play. It was one of the first big risks that Phillips has taken during the season.

But the ensuing drive failed to deliver a touchdown and was a energy killer. Two other decisions, when he elected not to go for a first down on a fourth-and-six in the third quarter, and when he passed up going for a two-point conversion in the fourth quarter would also prove to be head scratchers. These type of choices are some of the main reasons UK has failed to take advantage of situations during games that could have improved their record. When your record is lacking wins, taking some risks is what can at least get the fans back on your side, win or lose.

2. Defensive Pass Coverage

Following practice on Monday, junior linebacker Ridge Wilson said the defense was unprepared for the passing game that was thrown at them by the Bulldogs.

This happened because Rick Minter’s defense focused on the successful Mississippi State running game led by Vick Ballard, who still managed 18 carries for 90 yards on Saturday. The combination of Mississippi State’s Tyler Russell and Chris Relf completed 15 of 21 passes for 264 yards and two touchdowns. Those totals amount to 75 more yards on 14 fewer completions than that of the Cats.

The fact is, it wasn’t just Saturday night that the passing coverage has struggled. Fortunately for the Cats, they could get a break against upcoming opponent Ole Miss. The Rebels have struggled to find consistency in their passing game over the past few weeks, making it potentially UK’s best opportunity before season’s end to solve its problems in pass coverage.

3. Running Game

The Cats running game hasn’t been bad. They have used an assortment of ways to move the ball on the ground and it has been their most viable option on offense.

However, I don’t know why we aren’t seeing junior running back CoShik Williams become the featured back considering his recent success. He has shown that he should be the main threat on offense. Against a difficult Mississippi State defense, Williams was well on his way to rushing for the century mark when, all of a sudden, Jonathan George began getting the hand-offs for the remainder of the game. Where Williams went, I haven’t a clue, but if they choose to mix it up with a different back, that would be fine.

I expect that once Newton returns, his duties will primarily be to run out of the shotgun formation. That could make the defense susceptible to the pass, which is the likely solution to the offensive problems, in addition to the newfound potential found in Smith.

COACH PHILLIPS:  First our injury situation.  Collins Ukwu will still be out.  Raymond Sanders had a chance to run yesterday, did not swell.  We’ll take a look at him tomorrow and see.  If he still hasn’t swollen, he could possibly practice tomorrow and could possibly play if the swelling is still down.  Sam Simpson is out with back (injury).  Mark Crawford could possibly miss practice on Tuesday with an AC sprain in his shoulder, but we think he’ll have an opportunity to play on Saturday.  Gene McCaskill, who did not travel to LSU, is questionable also whether or not he’ll play.

Another huge challenge for us, we’re getting ready to play our third straight top‑20 team.  We played the No. 15, the No. 1, the No. 18.  18 just went from 10 to 18, so another huge challenge for us.

Offensively they are balanced, but one of the top teams in the league in rushing, has a guy who is probably a Heisman candidate.  You guys would have to determine that.  I think he definitely is, but that’s for you guys to determine.

Defensively they’re number one in the league in pass defense.  If freshmen could come out (for the NFL Draft), he’d be the number one pick in (Jadeveon) Clowney, second in the league in sacks, behind his counterpart (Melvin) Ingram, who is first in the league in sacks, one of the bigger athletes in the league.  (South Carolina is) Number one in sacks with 13 on defense.

Again, a big challenge for us, but another opportunity for us to see how much we’ve improved, if we’ve improved.  I think we did improve last week defensively.  We did not play especially well on offense, which is an area we have to get better at.

Questions.

Q.  Coach Spurrier talked about shaking things up this week.  What do you think of what they’re doing so far?  What needs shaking up?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I hope they shake it up and don’t turn it over to 21 (Lattimore).  That’s the shaking up I’d like to see done.

You could go in there and hand it off to 21 and still have success.  (The team is) Rushing for 197 yards (per game).  I don’t know what shaking up needs to be done when you’re putting up the numbers that they’re putting up offensively, averaging 31 points a game.

Q.  How different is this challenge than what you faced with LSU and Florida?

COACH PHILLIPS:  All three of them are difficult.  They’re big challenges.  Again, you’ve got to play clean.  I thought for the most part last week defensively we played good enough to win.  You can’t allow your defense to play as many snaps as quick as they had to go in the game.

We had eight three‑and‑outs out of 14 possessions.  That’s not very good.  It’s really tough on your defense.  You give these guys the amounts of possessions that we had last week with the short amount of time for your defense to play. I think these guys (South Carolina) are a little bit faster than the group we just saw, and just as physical, especially the running back position.  I think he’s (Lattimore) probably a little faster than the backs we saw last week and just as physical.

Last week they (LSU) didn’t try to get the perimeter as much in the run game as this group will try to get him on the perimeter.  They’ll also try to run downhill on you.  Offense has to keep them off the field as long as we can.

Q.  Re: Bookie Cobbins

COACH PHILLIPS:  We have to find out if we can find another play‑maker.  We’ll practice him this week at some other positions also, just try to see if he can provide some play‑making abilities.

We’ll look at him at some other positions and just try to figure out whether or not he can go in the game and help us.

Also, if you’re going to play a guy after going into your sixth game of the season, he’s got to play enough to warrant taking a redshirt off of him.  We got to figure that out also.

Q.  He was also recruited by LSU, Florida State.

COACH PHILLIPS:  I don’t know who all recruited him, who all offered him.  A lot of people looked at him.  I’m not sure exactly what people recruited him as.  I know we recruited him as a quarterback, got a chance to get him.  Definitely an athlete, no question about that.  We got to figure out if he’s good enough to help us, and help us out this year. We’ll try him out at receiver, some at the quarterback position, too.

Q.  What are some of the things you saw out of Morgan in fall camp that really impressed you that you’re not seeing on Saturday?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Not getting rid of the ball.  Got to get the ball out of your hands.  We’ve given up 21 sacks.  You try to dissect those plays, try to find out how we’re getting sacked so much.  A lot of those sacks have been his holding the ball too long.  A lot of it gets put on the offensive line.  It’s not always the line.  Sometimes it’s the back.  Sometimes it’s just the line.  Sometimes it’s just the wide receivers.  Sometimes it’s the quarterback.

Q.  You talked about not getting as many play‑makers as you hoped for.  Is that a recruiting issue?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We lost a pretty good one (Randall Cobb) that we expected to be here also.  Do you expect three years ago that a guy would leave here as a junior?  No.  So we’ve lost some guys.  Graduation got us.  We feel like there’s some young ones here, but they haven’t done it yet.

Q.  Re: receivers getting open

COACH PHILLIPS:  At times.  The separation is very small at this level.  It’s not as big as it is at the next level.  Some people say separation is not enough to throw it in there.  Sometimes it is.  We’ve got to recognize it at that position.  Open is not from me to him.  That’s not open.  That’s open, that’s wide open, okay?  Open is this far (coach holds hands apart).  Next level, it’s that far (coach holds hands closer).

Q.  Talk about the decision to stick with Matt Roark.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, E.J. Fields didn’t practice on Wednesday or Thursday.  Matt plays that position that E.J. played.  Matt made a couple plays for us.  Really good blocker for us.  He’s probably the best blocker for us on the perimeter.  You also see his attitude, the way he plays on the special teams.  It’s a guy that doesn’t get his head down when he hasn’t made plays because he bounces back and plays special teams.  Let’s give him another opportunity.  He took advantage of it this past week.

Q.  How much do you think drops have hurt Morgan?

COACH PHILLIPS:  It definitely hurt.  I played quarterback before, too.  That definitely hurts a quarterback’s psyche.  If we’re not making plays for him, it hurts the whole offense.

You take the first game, you have as many drops as we had, it starts to affect the whole offense.  You come back the next week, you have probably more, then the next week about the same.  This past week we didn’t have as many, but we didn’t attempt as many passes.  We didn’t get as many off also.

But we talk about the sacks, only dropping back 25 times (vs. LSU).  Actually we dropped back a little bit more than that.  We ran a few of them.  It looks like we only caught 25.  A couple had to throw away.

Q.  Do you have anybody who is as demonstrative on the sideline that gets fired up?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Offensively?

Q.  Yes.

COACH PHILLIPS:  No.  Everybody talks about Randall.  We’ve been studying this thing.  The guy who made the huge difference, Mike Hartline.  People won’t like to hear that.  He made a great difference in getting our protection set, getting the ball out of his hands, getting the ball to those guys who made plays for us.  Hartline is a huge, huge loss.  We had three really good players in Randall, (Derrick) Locke and Mike.  Locke ran around the edge when we didn’t have the edge.  We don’t have that ability right now.  But Mike Hartline was the guy I think that was probably the biggest loss that we have.

Q.  When you look at Morgan, do you scratch your head or do you go, close?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Close.  A couple runs we were close on.  A couple passes we were close on.  He’s close to being the type of leader that you want.

We’re in a world where you want to be close now, you know.  Coaches, we’re competitive.  We want to be close now.  He’s competitive.  He wants to be better now.  He’s working at it, working really hard at it.

Q.  (more on Hartline)

COACH PHILLIPS:  It’s hard to see 3,000 yards walk out the door.  The guy made some huge plays, 25, 26 touchdowns.  The backup quarterback is always going to be the more popular guy in any organization.  Morgan was popular.  Mike Hartline was popular at one time.

But, you know, we’re making decisions.  Made the decision last year who we thought gave us the best chance to win.  We thought he did a good job at that and we made the decision this year also.

Q.  When you talk about Clowney, Ingram, their ability to sack, what is it about them physically that makes them so good?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Just watching a couple clips of Clowney, athletic.  The running back tries to go cut him, he hurdles him.  Gets his feet down on the ground faster than anybody I’ve ever seen.  Goes and causes a fumble.  He’s just so long.  He’s athletic.  He’s a powerful guy.

You see Ingram all over the place.  He’s (running fake) punts.  I think he has two or three touchdowns, I know he has two for sure watching the film, the punt team.  I think he might have had one last week.  Just a guy that’s athletic.

There’s been even mention of them putting him at tailback.  That tells you what type of athlete he is.  He has played inside which tells you how powerful he is.  Now he’s playing on the outside which tells you how athletic he is.

Q.  Re: playing freshman wide receiver Demarco Robinson more

COACH PHILLIPS:  Last week with all the press coverage, how long and physical those DBs were that we played against, guy (Robinson) is 155 pounds.  Maybe like child abuse putting him in the game last week (laughter from media).  We decided we’ll get him in the game, if we knew for sure it was going to be a little bit more ‘off’ coverage.  Then having to block, we did not feel that this was a game that he could hold up in the block game also.  So we played those other guys.

Q.  re: E.J. Fields

COACH PHILLIPS:  Fields was injured last week.  He got injured, didn’t practice Wednesday or Thursday.  There’s one day of preparation for him.

In the past, we might have played him.  But we’ve seen how some of our guys this year at that position have performed after only practicing one day.  We just didn’t want to go through that ’cause we just didn’t think they had been prepared enough to play, so we decided to play the other guys that had been at practice.

Q.  Is there a quarterback competition right now?

COACH PHILLIPS:  There’s always a competition at every position.  Morgan still gives us our best chance to win, though.

Q.  How hard is it to coach getting rid of the ball for a quarterback and how much of it is instinct?

COACH PHILLIPS:  How much is it the coach?  One of the things, he got to trust that this guy is going to make a play for them and he’s open.  Go through your reads.  Is that one open?  You don’t think so, no.  Is the next one open?  You don’t think so, go with it.  Get it out of your hand or pull it down and run for a quarterback like him.

But I think we’ve done a really good job of coaching quarterbacks around here.  We’ll get Morgan right also.

Q.  re: if he expects South Carolina to change systems if the quarterback changes.

COACH PHILLIPS:  They’re going to do what they do.  It’s different than going from the two quarterbacks we saw last week, going back to the athletic guy.  I think these two guys (South Carolina QBs) are similar.  He (Spurrier) always goes from a drop‑back passer to a drop‑back passer.  His system or play calling doesn’t change.

Last week found out on Thursday morning (that LSU QB Jefferson might play), late Wednesday night, that was difficult.

Q.  (re: going into next week’s bye week on a win or loss) Would winning this week help things in terms of morale?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Definitely.  Winning helps everything.  It helps everything.  But we’ve been in a bye week with some of the biggest negative things we’ve ever been around and came out of it by winning a lot of games.

Like I say, winning helps everything.  I’m not sure it helps going into a bye if we don’t win.  We’ll use this bye to get ourselves better, get ourselves even more prepared for the second half of the season.

Q.  re: CoShik Williams not playing vs. LSU

COACH PHILLIPS:  Again, he didn’t practice on Wednesday or Thursday.  He did make it to the game.  But it was just a matter of we have seen this year guys not practice on Wednesday, offensively, then get a couple reps on Thursday.  We just felt like it was right.

Jonathan (George) had been sharp.  Had Jonathan not been that sharp, we probably would have played CoShik.  Jonathan was sharp enough so we gave him the reps.  It was nothing that CoShik did wrong.  He had a toe did didn’t allow him to practice on Wednesday, but was able to make the game.  We decided to go with the other guy.

COACH PHILLIPS:  First, the injury report.  (Josh) Clemons will be questionable.  He has a hamstring strain.  (Martavius) Neloms will practice but will have non‑contact probably Tuesday and Wednesday.  (Gene) McCaskill is also questionable with a back injury.  (Raymond) Sanders and (Collins) Ukwu are out.

And we’ll cut Mark Crawford loose this week to play.  So I’m really proud of the way he’s handled the suspension, the time he’s been off.  He’s done a lot of stuff on his own, extra work and conditioning, which you always worry about, especially a big guy that’s not getting a lot of reps in practice with the ones. He does get to work with the scout team but doesn’t get a lot of work, and has done a lot of extra work in getting himself conditioned, and we challenged him to be ready when the time came for him to play.  And we think he’s definitely done everything we’ve asked him to do, and he’ll get some reps on Saturday.

Another big challenge for us, great team (LSU).  I guess you guys in the media picked him to be No. 1 this week; why this week, wait another week to do it (laughing).  But defensively, only given up 14 points, 53 yards rushing, similar to the team we went against last week.  They were giving up 35.  Fifth in total defense, they have got seven sacks, fifth in the conference tied with us.  Turnover margin is the glaring thing that I think they have done as a team.  Plus eight, they have only given up three on offense and taken away 11 on defense.

Offensively they are averaging 38 points, given up three sacks; third down conversion, 48 percent.  Their special forces, they returned the kick last week (for a touchdown) and averaging 25 yards on kickoff returns.  Big, good‑looking (running) back, like a typical LSU back.  Fullback who has gone from being a defensive lineman to now playing fullback.  Really good player.

Quarterback is doing a good job of not turning the ball over and completing about 65 percent of his passes.

So another huge challenge for us, but we’ll go back to work tomorrow.  We got a chance to watch the film yesterday, we’ll be off today, getting treatment and some guys are getting some extra work on their own.

But we’ll go back to work tomorrow in preparing for these guys.  Hey, we are playing the No. 1 team.  So I’m sure you guys have questions.

Q.  Re: adjusting to your top two tailbacks being out.

COACH PHILLIPS:  We think that Clemons should ‑‑ we went without him last week, really.  Clemons got only a couple of carries.  And only played probably two series of the game.  But we think we should get him back this week.

Q.  You mentioned LSU is the No. 1 team.  What would it mean for this program to beat the No. 1 team?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Every year you play them, they are going to be one or two, maybe three.  You guys always seem to pick them the last couple of (games) No. 1 when we play them.

Again, it will remain the same as it meant a few years ago when we played them when they were No. 1.  It would be huge for our program if we could somehow put a together a clean game, both sides of the ball, which is what it will take to beat those guys.

Q.  How much would it mean considering the last two games ‑‑

COACH PHILLIPS:  It would mean that we have definitely improved.  We have made some steady improvements on offense, and it would mean that we have improved a lot because it’s going to take a lot of improvement, and we just have make that same type of improvement we made from game one to game two, game two to game three.  But then play smarter.  I think we have improved in techniques and assignment, now we have to improve in taking care of the football, the things that have nothing to do with talent.  Those are the things we have got to improve this week.

Q.  You said you watched the game film; what did you see?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We didn’t make as many mistakes, but our mistakes were very, very, very glaring, mistakes that we made this week.  And those stick out.  They are easy to see with the naked eye at the games.  It’s easy to see those type of mistakes.  But there were not as many mistakes as we made the week prior.

Q.  How much from the 2007 game can you use this year, can you use it at all?

COACH PHILLIPS:  You can use it a little bit, but some of the guys on this team remember that game.  But we are in a world that guys don’t ‑‑ kids don’t watch a lot of football.  You know, they don’t.  Especially when they were younger, so I’m not sure if this freshman class remembers that far back.  That was, what, four years ago, five years ago?  I’m not sure they remember that far back.

We’ll use it some with our present players.  We have to use the same formula to beat them, and the formula was getting the ball back to the line of scrimmage, if you guys can remember, that’s the thing ‑‑ guys, get it back to the line of scrimmage, let’s punt the ball away, if we have to, but end the series with a kicking situation, whether it be a field goal, extra point or a punt.

We found a way late in the game to make some plays, to have a chance to upset them.  And it will be the same way that we’ll have to do it this week.  We can’t turn the ball over.  We have to make some stops on defense, make them travel the whole field.

If you look at last week, they had the ball on our side of the field five times and they scored five times, and the other 11 series, they were 3‑for‑11.  We have to make people travel the whole field.  We have given them the short field way too many times and a lot of that has to do with turnovers.

I think last week, we moved the ball enough to try to flip the field.  We have got enough first downs in each series to flip the field but the turnovers was the ones that gave them the short field.

Then when we gave them the long field, you can’t give up big plays.  Keep them snapping the football.  They had a huge play when they go 99 yards.

Q.  When you were successful (against Florida) ‑‑ what was your defense doing well?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Keep them in front of you.  That’s what you’ve got to do.  When they have to travel the long field, you have to keep them in front of you.  You’ve just got to get them behind the count and we got them behind the count a couple of times, that now, it becomes hard ‑‑ I don’t care what team you are.

It becomes really hard to make first and 20s.  And a couple of times they had first and 20 that they had a couple holds calls or they have a procedure and first and 15, it becomes really hard to manage.  That’s the thing that our defense has got to do.  Just don’t give up the big play, okay.  You can’t give up the ‘GAP’ play which is game‑altering plays for us.

If we can just continue to get people to snap the ball, false start here and there, a holding here and there, creates long down situations, which become hard to manage, for anybody.

Q.  Louisville, and then last week, going to the hurry‑up offense, is that something you’ve thought about sneaking in the offense just throughout the game?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We went no‑huddle last week and we’ll have to change.  We would like to change the tempo.  We have got a couple different tempos with no‑huddle.

But also, when you are playing a team that likes to bring the pressure … you want to recognize the call, recognize the defense and recognize the blitz and change things here and there and try to protect yourself or try to get you out of a bad play.  Sometimes the hurry‑up is not as good versus a team that brings the pressure late.

So we didn’t hurry up as much last week.  It’s definitely something that we feel like we have to use, and it eats the clock.  It eats the clock, and that’s still ‑‑ I didn’t really understand this until about 2007 how much the clock is really ‑‑ our time of possession, we scored, every scoring drive was about two minutes and something that year. But we ate up clock.  We ate up a lot of clock in some other series that we didn’t score.  So I think it’s really helpful in eating up clock and when the clock is running and we have got the ball that means the offense is on the sideline, which means our defense is on the sideline, and those guys probably have to run and attack more than anybody on the football team.  And they are getting rested up.

Q.  re: mental mistakes

COACH PHILLIPS:  You can’t allow it to be infectious.  As soon as we are going along pretty good and then a mistake happens, and then another mistake happens and another mistake.  We have a mistake and fumble the ball.

So the thing we can’t allow those mistakes to be is, we can’t allow them to snowball into another mistake.

Q.  When you get down to third, fourth and fifth-team tailbacks playing, how difficult is that for pass protection?

COACH PHILLIPS:  That’s the hardest thing for a young back to be able to get.  That’s usually the last thing they get, because you’re not asked to do that in high school.  Most of their routes, they are free releasing.  They don’t have to worry about any linebacker coming.  We have to try to protect the quarterback.

We have some routes that he’s a free releaser, meaning don’t have to worry about any protections, but most of our protections they are involved in, and that becomes really tough for some of the young backs.  That’s why we saw CoShik Williams in two weeks ago when we were in a two‑minute situation.  Not that Josh Clemons can’t handle it, but some of the stuff is a little over his head right now. I think he’ll get it in time.  He gets most of it, but sometimes it becomes a little confusing for (him) even though he is a talented guy that’s a really focused guy.  So that comes into play in the passing game.

Q.  You have gone into that stadium as a young player, I believe but I don’t know if any of the team have been in there ‑‑

COACH PHILLIPS:  I don’t know if any of our guys have been in there.  I went in there was a player and as a coach and came away successful.

You can expect a loud, hostile crowd.  I can remember Coach (Jerry) Claiborne taking us to walk the field, walk the stadium prior to the ’83 game when we did play there and won.  And Jerry Eisaman who was the offensive coordinator brought the offense in the middle of the field and he had won as a player, from Kentucky; and just explaining to us the atmosphere, how the atmosphere would be, how it’s going to be loud, it’s going to be hostile, you’re going to be called every name under the sun except for your God‑given name.

He asked us just to smell the popcorn, smell the grass and all those things that come with being on the college football field.  Those things helped us mentally in understanding and preparing ourselves for what was about to happen the next day and to give us an opportunity to go in there and win, because we was prepared.  None of the things shocked us.

I thought about that with the early game.  I think it’s a little bit different.  We played at night

and we had a lot of time during the day, and we went over there, but I will tell them some of the things Coach Eisaman reminded us of, and you have to try to block those things out, you do.  You have to try to block those things out and I think we did a good job in ’83 and we’ll need to do a good job this year, also.

Q.  Is that a help to you?  I know you don’t have to sit around ‑‑

COACH PHILLIPS:  I like the fact that we don’t have to sit around the hotel.  I like the fact, playing an early game, we have been an early practice team for the last seven, eight years, and hopefully that helps.

But you know, when the whistle blows, you can throw out all that stuff.  We’ll try to use that mentally but when the whistle blows, you can throw out all that stuff and it’s you against me and that’s the attitude that we have to take also.

Q.  What has been done to push the program forward, if you had a wish list, what things would you still see that need to get done in the relatively near future?

COACH PHILLIPS:  That’s pretty creative how you said it this time.  (Laughter).

One thing we have done, we got back here in 2003 and there was some things that we thought need to get done, and one thing we want to do was take care of the players.

Anybody on the outside doesn’t see the things we have done for the players, and we want to take care of our present players and that’s the two locker rooms that we built, the three new surfaces on our practice field and we have done a good job at that.

We have replaced the surface in the indoor (field house).  (We have new) meeting rooms and I’m not sure if you guys have got a chance to see them, now state‑of‑the‑art and got theatre‑style, done the same thing with our breakout  (position meeting) rooms, also.  So we have done some things that the outsiders don’t get a chance to see.

So we wanted to take care of our present players first.  Now, there’s some things we have to do, and that’s take care of the fans, we have started that.  We recognize that and we have started that with the video boards and those things, and now you know we have got plans, also.  We have been talking about renovating the stadium.

We have done the things we need to do to continue to grow this program.  We have had a great week in recruiting this week, and recruits come to our campus, you never hear them saying we don’t have good facilities.  You never hear that.  Usually they are saying they like the facilities.

So we have got good working facilities for the players.  We recognize that we have got to do some things for the fans to see.  But what we have done $14 million worth of things to help our present players; and that said, it doesn’t always show up outside.  But we have done some things, some initial things that we need to do.  We talked about the recruiting room and the recruiting room is really just to house recruits before the game and have a facility we can serve meals.

We have adjusted some things.  We have created a room up in the field house where I get a chance to visit with recruits, and it’s plush and I went in there and was like, wow, these guys have done a great job in less than a week, week and a half.  We have been creative in the way that we have had to spruce up our indoor facilities where the meals are served so.  We have done some things to try to put the “wow” factor in this thing.

And we are football coaches and you have to be able to adjust and we feel like we have done a good job of adjusting to what we have.  And again, you never hear recruits leave here saying, they don’t have good facilities.

Q.  Is it a never‑ending process in today’s environment?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Definitely.  It’s like mowing a 100‑acre field, as soon as you get it mowed, you mow it again.  As soon as we have done the facilities, the things that we have done over, in a couple of years, we’ll have to do some other things to do it.

Again, it’s never ending.  And I’ve been to a lot of schools, and none compares to this place here, the facilities.  I know Notre Dame that they have done some things since I left, Cincinnati has done some things, but we have done some things here, also.

Q.  re: conference realignment and should Kentucky stay in the SEC

COACH PHILLIPS:  I don’t think it’s ‑‑ it’s not my job or my deal to be thinking about, but I think we are in a good situation right here where we are.

Q.  You’ve said often when we ask you about realignment, and A&M is officially in the league now, what’s your reaction to that?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Welcome them.  I think it’s a fine institution.  Does nothing but help this league get even stronger, and we’ll wait for the schedule to come out and play who comes up on our schedule.

Q.  How might that affect you in recruiting?

COACH PHILLIPS:  People say, well, it will give you a chance to get into Texas.  South Carolina never gave us a chance to get into South Carolina until I went down there.  We have never gotten into Arkansas.  I know there’s more players in Texas, so we’ll take a look at it and see how much interest we have.

In the past, there’s not a lot of kids in the SEC from Texas.  One school that does have them, and that’s the one we are about to play, Arkansas, has a few, not a lot, because they are closer.

But I don’t know how much it will affect us recruiting down there.  You know, what we have got to do is do a better job in the Southeastern Conference area schools, got to get up north a little bit in the states that border us.

Q.  re: if playing on the road can be something to pull a team together

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I think it’s something to use at times.  You know, we used that Morgan’s freshman year, went on the road and won three SEC games.  Our kids felt that way a little bit.  We go to Auburn, win.  They go to Vanderbilt and win, they go to Georgia and win, and that had a lot to do with it.

We have got to get this program to where that’s not a factor.  We want to win home.  We have to take care of Commonwealth Stadium, and we have not done a good job this year of taking care of Commonwealth Stadium.  This should be a huge advantage for us to be at home and we have not used it to our advantage.

Opening Statement:

COACH PHILLIPS:  First our injury report.  Billy Joe Murphy actually ran today.  We’ll try to find out tomorrow how he does with swelling.  If he doesn’t, we’ll get him into some individual tomorrow.  Then if he doesn’t swell after, that we’ll start getting him in some more of the practices.

Taiedo Smith, he ran Sunday, looked okay.  We have to see how he does today, and then make a decision tomorrow whether or not he’s capable of practicing.

Larry Warford is day‑to‑day with an ankle, but should be able to play on Saturday.  He’s day‑to‑day whether or not he’ll practice.  The reason we say day‑to‑day is because we don’t want to reinjure him.  We think he can go on Saturday, so that’s the reason why he’s day‑to‑day.

We have had a chance to watch the tape obviously a couple times.  We’ve got to get better, especially offensively.  We got to do a better job with our field position also.  When you’re struggling offensively, it’s hard to go 80 yards because teams, all they want you to do is continue to snap the ball, which is our goal, keep offenses continuing to snap the ball.

We started on the 20 or less seven out of our 12 drives, and that’s hard, especially for an offense that’s struggling.  We got to do a better job at getting field position.  A lot of that has to do with our kicking game and getting people stopped on defense.

On the other side, we talk about field position.  11 of the drives that Louisville had last week ‑‑ they only had one that started backed up.  They had two on our side of the ball, which scored two out of three times.  We had none on the other side of the ball.  We got to do a better job in field position because it’s hard when you’re struggling offensively to drive the ball 80 yards.

Also I think our defense is playing really good, playing good defense.  The thing that we can’t do is we can’t allow people to throw the ball over our head.  Red zone defense teams have not scored a touchdown on us.  They’ve been in the red zone five times against us, and we’ve allowed four field goals, so we have not given up a touchdown.

The thing we can’t do is we can’t allow the people to throw the ball over our heads.  That’s happened in a couple games.

We’ve got to do a better job as coaches.  I’ve got to do a better job also.  We have to give these guys a better plan and a better job of executing a plan that we give them.

We have a huge challenge.  Florida is averaging 37 points a game, averaging 200 yards plus on both sides as far as running and passing.  They are only allowing 8.7 (points) giving up, giving up 30 yards of rushing, which is what we ran for last week, 35 yards.  That’s a huge challenge.

Got great team speed in all phases.  In the special forces, they have returned (a punt) for a touchdown, they’ve blocked two punts.

Huge challenge for us.  We’ve got to play a clean, fast game with no mistakes, playing field position, taking our shots on offense, running the ball when they give it to us, making them snap the ball (when UK is) on defense to have an opportunity to win this game.

Any questions.

Q.  re: Gene McCaskill

COACH PHILLIPS:  Gene again is day‑to‑day also.  The reason why they mention Gene is because we think he has a chance.  He should practice tomorrow, so I didn’t mention Gene.  But he should be fine.

Q.  Florida has always been known for great special teams.  Any special emphasis on special teams this week?

COACH PHILLIPS:  It’s always a special emphasis.  You don’t want to get a punt blocked.  The percentage goes up really high for a team that gets a punt block.  Obviously last week we got a punt block.  It didn’t go backwards.  Luckily it went forwards.  Our defense was able to get them stopped.

We always have to put an emphasis on protecting our punter.  That’s one of our goals every week.  There’s three things I ask all three coordinators to give me what it’s going to take to win every week; special forces, it’s going to take protecting our punter and covering punts also.

This team is a great punt‑block team.  They’ve blocked two already this year.  One of them they had 10 guys on the field, nine guys up, bad snap.  We have to have the correct execution.  They didn’t have it.  They blocked that one.  They blocked one last week also.

We’ve got to protect our punter.  That’s a huge emphasis, not just this week, but every week.

Q.  How concerned are you about the offensive line holding up?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I’m not concerned.  I’m concerned about our overall offense.  We’ve got to get going offensively.  This is a similar deal to 2008, when we lost all the production.  Our defense had to carry us for a few weeks.  The difference is we’re turning the ball over.  That’s the difference.

2008, we won our first three games.  The way we won our first three games is not turning it over and creating turnovers.  Right now we’re even in the turnover margin.  That’s the huge difference.  You can’t turn the ball over when you’re struggling offensively and put your defense in some tough situations.  That’s what we’ve done.

Q.  You talk about clean and fast.  Do you really think you have to play perfect against Florida?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I don’t think you have to play perfect.  It’s hard to go out and play perfect.  If you ask Florida last week did they play perfect, no, they didn’t play perfect, but they won the game.

I just think you have to take advantage of opportunities that are given to you.  Can’t have drops.  Can’t have turnovers.  You can’t have 14 minus‑yard plays.  You can allow a couple, but you can’t allow 14 of them and have a chance to win.

I don’t think you have to play perfect, but you have to play smart.

Q.  Re: Florida’s transition to a new coach.

COACH PHILLIPS:  They haven’t changed.  They’re Florida.  They have great athletes.  They were in a transition last year, if you ask me, transition with the quarterback change.  That was their transition.  This quarterback has been the starter for two years.  I don’t consider it a transition.

Defensively, they’ve always been really good.  They’ve always had great personnel.  They’ve always had great personnel on offense as well.  The special teams coordinator is the same as last year.  Same philosophy.  I think last year was the transition period.  They got great players and a quarterback that’s playing good for them also.

Q.  What do you know about Charlie Weis and how his offenses play?

COACH PHILLIPS:  You know, Coach Minter’s worked for Charlie at Notre Dame, so they know each other.  It will be a really good matchup between those two guys knowing each other.

I mean, Charlie likes to run the football.  Also off the runs, he’ll have a play‑action off all the runs he has.  He’ll have a screen off of every run that he has.  We just got to make sure that we recognize the things that they’re trying to do, attack blockers, get off blockers, make plays.

Q.  You mentioned their speed.  How can speed impact a game and how much of a concern is that?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I mean, all of us in here have heard the term ‘speed kills.’  I know that’s one of the clichés.  Which one is overrated?  It’s not overrated this week.  They got the type of speed that can hurt you.

They have probably the fastest guy in the world.  They got probably the second fastest guy in the world.  Urban (Meyer) built this team.  He said he wanted to be the fastest team in the country and they probably are.

We’ve got to make sure when we get an opportunity to get our hands on them, we’ve got to wrap them up and get a chance to tackle them, we have to gang tackle, get off blocks and get to those fast guys also.

Q.  With all the waiting that EJ Fields has had, what has been his attitude?

COACH PHILLIPS:  His attitude has been great.  We never questioned his attitude, his want to play.  He was suspended earlier in the season, so he didn’t get a lot of reps.  Why give a guy reps that’s not going to play for you in the opening games?  He got some reps in the second week that he took advantage of.  Didn’t get an opportunity because we thought he was still behind.

Got an opportunity (in the Louisville game).  He was going to be our first guy to go in the game at the receiver position.  He went in, took advantage of the opportunity that was given to him, did what receivers are supposed to do, which is catch the football.

Like I say, he made some big plays for us, one on the scramble that Newton threw out of the end zone.  That could have easily gone the other way.  He steps in front of the defender, comes back to it, makes the play.  Those things give receivers a chance.  He got a chance to play and took advantage of it.  He’ll get even more of an opportunity this week.

Q.  EJ said it was easier on the field?

COACH PHILLIPS:  And it should be.  That says something about the way we practice, our practices.  We try to turn the heat up on practice so it becomes easy.  The game should be easier than practice.

Q.  Compared to last year, how much is Trey Burton showing up on film?

COACH PHILLIPS:  He showed up a lot last year, he had six touchdowns against us.  They don’t actually do as much (of those plays) this year.  They’re more of a conventional offense.  They’re not as much gun, read, option, those things.  They’re not doing those things they did with him last year.  They’re getting the balls in the hands of some of those world‑class sprinters we were talking about.

Q.  Running the ball about 70% of the time on first down.  On those plays, 1.2 yards per carry.  Is 70% running on first down predictable at all?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I’ll tell you, in the first game, first half we threw the ball five times on first down.  Getting really, really far behind the count, behind the sticks.  That was a game that we saw that our defense was playing outstanding.  It was, Hey, just don’t screw it up, give our defense a chance to win this game.

Same with the second game, similar to the first game.  Our defense was playing good after the first three series.  It was, Hey, let’s just move the sticks, don’t turn the ball over, take shots when you get an opportunity, and we should win the game.  Those things happen.

We’ve got to throw the ball first down.  We’ve got to mix it up.  We can’t be predictable.  Those first two games, that’s the reason why the percentage is so high because of the first two games.

Q.  Talk about speeding up the tempo.

COACH PHILLIPS:  We’ve got to play faster.  Looked like we played a little faster when we went into a two‑minute mode.  Not sure we’ll go that fast, but we’ll try to do some no‑huddling.  If you can remember, when we were a big no‑huddle team, we’d burn up the clock.  Our time of possession was a lot more than the opponents had.

I think because at times you take your time, you get up there, see what’s going on, then there’s time you have to play faster in the two‑minute mode.

We got to mix it up in the type of tempos we do play because I think it does give us an advantage.  Obviously it did last Saturday.  We got to try to find a tempo that fits us.

Q.  Do you talk to the players about the streak?

COACH PHILLIPS:  No, that was the past.  That’s the past.  We don’t talk about the past.  We talk about the present.  The present, this team is the team that has to play Florida, not those last teams that played them.

Q.  (continued thoughts on team’s current situation)

COACH PHILLIPS:  We’ve been here before, battled our way out of it.  We’ll continue to battle our way out of this.  We’re 2‑1.  We’re not 0‑3.  Yeah, we could be 0‑3.  We also could be sitting here at 3‑0 also.

As bad as we played the other night, we got a chance to have the ball first and goal inside the 10 yard line and win this game or take it into overtime, and see what happens.

We’re 2‑1.  Let’s see how we do the rest of these games.

Q.  re: effect of Raymond Sanders’ absence

COACH PHILLIPS:  It doesn’t matter if you’re not blocking people, getting hat on hat.  Doesn’t matter if you have 14 minus‑yard plays.  Doesn’t matter who’s in there.  I got a chance to meet Gale Sayers.  It would be hard for him, even, if we’re not blocking people, getting a hat on a hat.

I think the backs that played the other day competed their tails off.  CoShik (Williams) got an opportunity, another guy that took advantage of it.  There will be opportunities for other guys that haven’t had opportunities.  All that does is build up confidence in each position.  I think we got even more confidence in the running back position.  We got more guys that can make plays for us.

We miss Raymond.  We’d like to have him back.  He’s done for two or three weeks.  We’ll see what happens when he comes back.

Q.  Question regarding the offensive line.

COACH PHILLIPS:  I don’t know.  It’s the million‑dollar question.  We got to get them better.  We got to get them playing better, us as coaches.  That’s our job.  We’re not giving up on those guys.  Those guys play a lot of ball around here and have had a lot of success around here.

We’re struggling right now.  It’s not just the offensive line.  It’s the offense in general.  It’s not just the offensive line.  It’s a team thing.  That part of the team is struggling right now.

Like I say, we don’t turn the ball over, we don’t look as bad.  You’re not sitting here talking about how bad our running game is because I think we have more opportunities.  You have more opportunities to run the ball when you turn the ball over.  You have more opportunities to score.  We just haven’t had enough snaps to be able to run the ball.

Q.  On third‑and‑longs, you’ve had 22 plays.  What is the thinking on running (some of those plays)?

COACH PHILLIPS:  A lot of times on third‑and‑long, they drop eight guys.  You’re throwing into some tough coverages.  When we drop eight, that’s where we got a lot of our interceptions.  We’re one of the top teams in the conference in turnovers because we getting people in third‑and‑long and they’re trying to drop back and throw the ball.  Every zone is covered underneath.  You got three deep behind it.  I think it becomes really tough.

We’ve tried to run the ball (on some plays).  In the past we have converted on third‑and‑long by running the ball.

Q.  How does the Florida defense compare to what you’ve faced so far?

COACH PHILLIPS:  They’re better.  You can look at the statistics and see.  We talked about the team speed.  They’re definitely better.  So, again, we’ve got to play cleaner than we’ve played to have an opportunity to beat these guys.

Q.  When you look at the quarterback sacks the other night, what was it?

COACH PHILLIPS:  It was a combination.  We’ve got to get the ball out of our hands.  We’ve got to protect better.  We had to sight adjust a couple times that we missed that we can’t block a couple guys.

Morgan, for the most part, protected himself and knew we had enough guys to block the guys we have.

Again, got to win one‑on‑one battles.  A few times we didn’t win one‑on‑one battles and a few times he hung onto the ball too long.  That amounted to a lot of the minus‑yard plays.  Six of the minus‑yard plays were on sacks.

Q.  Re: players being angry about the loss

COACH PHILLIPS:  This is definitely an emotional game.  You have to wear your emotions on your sleeves.  We want our guys playing angry.  That’s the way this game is meant to be played.

Q.  As a coach, how aware are you about the way fans feel about things?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I feel the same way.  You know, I feel the same way as everybody.  Hey, understand this:  I care about this program more than anybody in here.  There’s not one person in here that cares more about it than me.

I’m angry.  I’m angry.  I’ve been a part of an 0‑10‑1 season.  Battled ourselves to get to a 9‑3 season.  As a coach I’ve been in a 1‑10 season.  Battled ourselves to where we won eight, nine games.  I’m angry also.  I’m not satisfied with what we’re doing here, I’m not.  It starts with me.  We’ll get it corrected.

Q.  On fans judging the program, you’re only three games into your second year as the head coach.

COACH PHILLIPS:  I think it’s fair given today’s society because this is a society that, what do you call it, microwave society.  I think it’s fair.  I know what I signed up for, I really do.  I’m not one that takes this position for granted.  I understand what I signed up for.  I understand the concerns that everybody has.  I have the same concerns.  We’re trying to get them fixed.

Again, I care about this program, this football program, as much as anybody that’s out there.

Q.  I think you said one of the words of advice Rich Brooks gave you was turn the noise down.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Yeah.  Listen to it means you don’t react to it.  People say, ‘We want to do this.’  You don’t react to it.  You stay with your plans.  There’s nothing wrong when you hear it, but just don’t react to it.  That’s what ‘Don’t listen to the noise’ means.

I watched that old guy go through the same thing, how he handled it and reacted to it.  We’re trying to do it the same way.  We’re battling our tails off, continuing to recruit as hard as we possibly can.

Q.  What is your reaction if players tweet things to fans?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I think it’s unnecessary.  I think we got great fans, we do.  We got great fans.  We feel their concerns.  We got the same concerns that we’re trying to get fixed.  I don’t think that’s necessary.

Our fans did a really good job last week.  We expect them to do a good job this week also.

Q.  Did Coach Brooks react to whatever he heard behind closed doors?

COACH PHILLIPS:  No.  He never came in, throwing stuff, telling me to do this, telling Coach Brown to do that.  No, he didn’t.  We went about business as usual.

There’s some things that he would come in and say he wanted, but it wasn’t because of a reaction to something he heard.  I’ll do the same.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Injury report:  Gene McCaskill hurt his back and did not play after the first quarter.  Larry Warford hurt his ankle late in the game, and we will evaluate it tomorrow.  He did go back in the game, but we’ll evaluate it tomorrow and see how he does and how he’ll be.

A game of missed opportunities again.  Offensively we started fast, missed a couple opportunities to get the ball in the end zone.  We had an error made that did not allow us to get the pass to Josh Clemens in the end zone, and we had to come away with three points.

We had a missed opportunity on the fumble early in the first quarter, but we got a big play, got a big play, and we turned the ball over.  That’s one of the things that we put a huge emphasis on in a game like this.  Turnovers are the key, and running the football is the key, and I know people want you to throw the ball all the time all over the place.  I would have much rather ran the ball for 255 yards and threw the ball for 35 yards, much rather.  I would have much rather sit there with 500 or 600 yards.  But running the ball is the key to winning games.  You look at them, they ran the ball for 181 yards, they had zero turnovers, and that’s the difference.

Like I said, it’s a backyard fight, backyard brawl between two good football teams.  Regardless of what anybody thinks, two good football teams were out there playing today, and it was missed opportunities.  When a person in a backyard brawl drops his hands and gives you his chin, you’ve got to take it.  You’ve got to take it, and we missed opportunities by putting the ball on the ground, not playing clean, which allowed them to take advantage of us.

I thought that E.J. Fields really stepped up and did a really good job for us.  Again, when another receiver is struggling, he gets a chance to go in the game and was a guy that took advantage of an opportunity.  All he did was go in and catch seven passes and a touchdown, but we’ve been expecting it from E.J. a long time, okay, but he’s got to show it to us every day, and I expect him to do that every day.

I thought our defense battled their tails off, had a couple short fields and did a good job.  But we just can’t give up the big play.  Had two really big pass routes that they hit us on, two fades, and again, the difference in the first half, they threw and caught, we did not throw and catch.  Again, a game of missed opportunities by us.

Questions?

Q.  Can you talk about the play of your offensive line?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I mean, when you run the ball for 35 yards, it’s not good enough, and we gave up six sacks.  I’m not saying they were all on the offensive line, but still not good enough.  So it would be crazy for me to sit here and say they played good enough to win.

Q.  Why do you think he (Josh Clemons) struggled to run?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I mean, the one thing you’ve got to do is put a hat on a hat.  We had a couple runs that we thought were blocked pretty clean, and at that time we would stumble and fall, we thought had a chance to come out, and then you’ve just got to win one‑on‑one battles, and I don’t think we won a lot of one‑on‑one battles, enough one‑on‑one battles to run the ball efficiently.

Q.  What did you think of Morgan tonight?

COACH PHILLIPS:  He fights, he scratches, he claws, he does some good.  But there’s some things that we’ve got to get cleaned up with Morgan, also.  I mean, I think our guys played with great effort on offense.  I don’t think we played good enough to win offensively.

Q.  What did you think of the freshman Teddy Bridgewater?

COACH PHILLIPS:  They did a good job of running the ball downhill and staying ahead of the down and distance with him and not getting into third-and-longs.  I think that gives a young quarterback a chance to play.  You know, ran some nakeds with him, ran some quick game with him, again, which gives him a chance to give the young guy a chance to play.

Q.  Would you saying that Louisville won the game in the trenches?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Definitely.  They rushed for 181 yards and we rushed for 35 yards, we had six sacks against us, so yes.

Q.  Is that disappointing that they beat you at the line of scrimmage?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Yeah, it’s disappointing that they beat us, period.  I mean, they beat us.  They beat us because the score was 24 to 17.  They beat us, period, not because of them being able to rush the ball for 181 and us only being able to rush it for 35 yards, not because of that.  It’s because they beat us, period.

Q.  Is that a toughness issue?

COACH PHILLIPS:  No, because we’ve got tough kids, because our defense, those guys are doing a really good job of flying to the ball and tackling.  We tackled better.  The thing we have to do is, we have to hold the point and then we have to make sure that we open up holes for our backs and give them a chance.

Q.  You said at times in the past that to have the type of season you all want to have you have to win this game.  I know it’s early in the year, but where do you go from here?

COACH PHILLIP:  We’ve got a chance.  It’s still a long season.  We’re only three games into it, and it’s good that a lot of these young players were in a game like this, which is an SEC atmosphere.  I think that really helps the young kids that we’re playing with.  We’ll go to work tomorrow and get ready for our SEC opener.

Q.  On the play of CoShik Williams …

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I mean, we got into a spread the field a little bit and went into a two‑minute mode.  It opens up some running lanes for us late in the game, and we actually ‑‑ I think Shik’s biggest runs were off pass plays.  His biggest runs were off pass plays because his longest run was only nine yards, so most of his big runs were off being able to dump the ball to the back on pass plays and giving him a chance to get up the field for us.

Q.  Did Josh Clemons get nicked up?  He didn’t play much.

COACH PHILLIPS:  No, but he did play.  He played a lot.  He probably played more than CoShik (Williams).  We didn’t have the ball very much in the third quarter, and Josh was playing two series and Shik was playing one.  We went three‑and‑out and were going backwards in the third quarter, had crappy field position, couldn’t get anything going, and I think that’s the reason why it looks like he didn’t play very much, because when his series were up, we went three‑and‑out, or one time I think we went four‑and‑out.  The one time on the one‑yard line, our offense did a good job of getting it out of there, but we were stalled after about five or six plays.  That’s the reason why you didn’t see him as much.

Q.  Louisville has been good at sustaining the run anyway.  What was the plan in terms of trying to get the running game going?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, we’ve got to run the football.  Again, like I say, we’ve got to try to run the football because it opens up all the other things that we want to do with the play action.  That also gives you a chance to run past people because they stack the line.  That gives you those chances.  So we’ve got to try to run the football.

Q.  Did you see the play where they ripped the ball out, it looked like you had the first down ‑‑

COACH PHILLIPS:  Yeah, it’s a deal where we’ve got a chance to have the ball first and goal, I think it was inside the 10‑yard line, and we catch a hitch route and they just got the ball out.  Didn’t see a replay, really couldn’t see it because I was on the far end away from our bench, but it can’t happen.  Can’t happen.  Can’t happen.  We expect our guys to ‑‑ it’s zero coverage, which means they bring an all‑out blitz, we expect our guys to make people play when they bring zero coverage, we throw a hitch route, make a move and walk in the end zone.

But we didn’t do that.  We made a huge mistake that put us at third and six or seven, and we just didn’t convert on the ‑‑ I’m sorry, fourth and six or seven, and we didn’t convert it.  We go from having a first down to having a fourth down, and we got hit as he was throwing the football trying to convert the fourth down.

Q.  Preseason you said the offensive line would be the strength of the offense for the first time.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, we all said that.  We did return four starters and a guy who had started some games, so we said ‑‑ it’s not just me, we all said that.  It hasn’t happened.  It has not happened.  I don’t blame it on injuries and all those things, or I don’t blame it on having played together.  We’ve just got to get better.  We’ve got to get them better.  We have got to get them better as a staff.

Q.  Last week Charlie (Strong) was saying that he felt like your team was ahead of his team.  Have they made up that ‑‑

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, that was a ploy to get his team ready to play, I understand that, and I just think that we’ve got to continue to work to get our football team better every week.  I’m not comparing my team to their team.  Today they were the better team obviously, but I’m not comparing my team to their team.

Q.  What do you tell your guys in the locker room?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I mean, it was a game of missed opportunities.  That’s what it was.  It was a game and a hard‑fought game like this, you cannot, you cannot miss the opportunities.  You’ve got to make people pay when you get in the secondary after catching a big pass and we’ve got a chance to have the ball in the red zone, we can’t put the ball on the ground.  We can’t let them convert first and 15 two times in a row.  We can’t have a punt blocked.  Our defense did a great job of getting them stopped, but we can’t do that.  It takes your stinger out for a while.  It took us a while to get back from that.  And it also gives the other team the momentum when a punt is blocked.

Again, it was just a game of missed opportunities, but a hard‑fought game.  I really appreciate their effort, but we can’t miss opportunities.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Injury report.  Matt Smith will not practice tomorrow.  Billy Joe Murphy will not practice tomorrow.  Taiedo Smith will not practice tomorrow.  Gene McCaskill is a deal where we’re trying to take care of a veteran and he will practice on Wednesdays.  That’s what he did last week.  He will continue to do that until we feel like he’s strong enough to go a couple days a week.  He’ll practice on Wednesday and then he’ll do some of the walk‑through stuff on Thursday.

Louisville week, it’s a big week.  Those guys have done a good job over there, especially offensively.  They’re averaging about 415 yards a game.  They out‑gamed FIU 150 yards.   Stein (quarterback Will Stein) is completing 62% of his passes.  Got some really good‑quality receivers.  DeVante Parker has two touchdowns, Michaelee Harris, a true freshman, averaging about 16 yards a catch, (Josh) Chichester is averaging about 18 yards a catch.  Victor Anderson and Jeremy Wright, two solid backs rotating at the tailback position.

Their defense is an aggressive‑style defense.  They are doing a really good job of stopping the run, only giving up 94 yards of rushing (per game) and only 2.5 per rush, so doing a good job of stopping the run.

Linebackers, Dexter Heyman, really like him, leading tackler, leading tackler for loss.  He’s lining up all over the place, lots of different spots.  They’ve moved him around every year up until last year when he really settled in at the Mike linebacker position.  He was a Sam linebacker, now a Mike linebacker, doing a really good job for them.  (They are) Only giving up 16 points a game also.

It will be a huge challenge for us.  Give us another opportunity to see where our program is at.  We got to prepare our guys for this tough battle, tough in‑state battle.

Any questions?

Q.  Re: center Matt Smith improving from injury

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, we thought he was, so we practiced him a couple days, actually just one day, last week.  He wasn’t as close as we thought he was.  But he’s still getting treatment, trying to get himself back to where he could be an asset for us.

He’s been out of town the last couple of days, Grandpop died.  A couple guys went up to be with him.  But we’re hoping to get him back here soon.

Same with Billy Joe (Murphy).  We got to get Billy Joe back in the mix.  Although the young guy (Darrian Miller) did do a really good job, but it only helped our depth.

Q.  Re: Josh Clemons

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, you know, you hear the buzz around a facility in the summer of how he works in the weight room.  This is really the first year Coach Oliver and his staff have timed our guys.  We don’t like to time them as we get close to training camp in fear of pulling muscles and those things, being out.  Coach Oliver timed them as soon as they got here.

He ran a pretty good time.  We didn’t know he was as fast as he looked on the day, but he did run a pretty good time, got the work ethic in the weight room.  Then we just started getting him reps in training camp.

He was the back that showed up every day.  Didn’t miss a day.  So he’s really durable.  Really understood our offense.  Then when we went into our first scrimmage, some of the cuts he made, his vision, his balance, those things, his ability to secure the football, those are the things that told us that we thought he could be a pretty good back for us.

Q.  Does preparation change when you have a big rivalry like this?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Time‑wise we’ll treat it the same.  We’re limited in how much time we can work.  It doesn’t change the time; it doesn’t change the way we’ll practice.

Yes, every week we got to turn the tempo up, try to get ourselves better and better.  It won’t change significantly ’cause we’re only limited by time.  But the way we practice, every week, like I say, we’ll have to turn the tempo up to try to get ourselves better.

Q.  Do you talk at all about the rivalry?

COACH PHILLIPS:  You don’t have to say much.  Our kids know about this rivalry.  They know.  We talk about the rivalries they’ve been in high school.  It’s magnified.  I think the in‑state kids here in Kentucky are familiar with it and they express it to the kids who are not from the state of Kentucky.  But they understand this rivalry.

Q.  On players improving their 40-yard dash times.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Right now they’re not as fast as they would be in the summer because they’re a little sore.  We’ve been through training camp.  We’ve been through two weeks of the season.  You don’t expect them to be faster.  I would expect from the time he (Coach Oliver) timed them when they first got here to the start of training camp they might have gotten faster with strength.  Right now I wouldn’t think they’d run as fast.  That’s not just our guys, it’s everybody, because of being beat up.

Q.  On getting Morgan Newton more involved in the running game

COACH PHILLIPS:  Not just Saturday, the rest of the season.  We’ve got to run Morgan.  We’ve told him that from day one, we’re going to have to run you more.  He’s a big, physical runner also, especially when he gets in the secondary, guys start bouncing off of him.

He’s faster than he looks.  Morgan Newton is faster than he looks.  He showed it in the first game.  He’s got some speed.  We’ll definitely have to run him.  We’ll get into the (shot)gun a little bit more.  When we get in the gun, that gives us a two‑back running game.

When you get the last two quarterbacks we had, you get in the gun, you were limited with Andre’ and Mike Hartline, you were limited with what you could run in the running game.  With Morgan, you can run a lot more downhill plays with him.

Q.  Why is Louisville so good against the run?

COACH PHILLIPS:  They definitely stack the box and dare you to throw it.  Teams have had some success throwing the ball on them.  We’ll have to throw it consistently to have a chance to get them out of the box so we can run the ball.

The thing we are doing, did good last week, is running the ball.  Ran for 230 yards.  We expect the box to be stacked even more this week.  We have to complete some passes to get them into some coverages.

Sometimes they bluff you by bringing everybody up to the line of scrimmage, talk you out of your runs, then dare you to get into the throw game, then drop everybody out into zone coverage which sometimes creates problems.

We got to be on point in recognizing all their blitzes, recognizing when they’re coming also.

Q.  On Morgan Newton throwing the ball deep compared to short passes.

COACH PHILLIPS:  I can tell you this, he’s had nine drops, nine or ten drops.  Those hurt his numbers.  The deep ball has been good to us.  Like I say, we’ll have to continue to throw the deep ball.  Like I say, you throw four, five deep balls, you hit three of them, you could be easily 21 points up.

Last week La’Rod (King) caught two deep balls.  We actually threw three.  We were one for three.  Actually two for three.  Another one could have been a touchdown.  So we’ve got to continue to throw the deep ball.

But we also got to throw the underneath stuff better because it only gets them closer to the line of scrimmage, trying to shut down the underneath stuff.  Gives us the chance to throw over their heads.

The thing that gives us the best chance to throw over their heads is running the ball efficient.  I think that is what is giving us the chance last week to throw over their heads, putting it in one of the runningbacks’ belly, pulling it out, and now throwing over the top of them because the safety is starting to have to get involved.

Q.  On throwing shorter passes accurately.

COACH PHILLIPS:  A lot of it has to do with getting lined up correctly, setting his feet and throwing the ball.  Actually we were two for three.  We actually had another one that we missed that would have been a touchdown, too.  So you throw the deep ball, you complete three of them, three of the ones we had, that’s 21 points.  Three of them would have been for touchdowns.

He just has to throw the ball.  Get relaxed first of all.  Don’t try to throw a fastball every time, just throw it with touch, get it to the receivers, give those guys a chance to make a play.

Q.  On the tight ends not catching any passes the first two games.

COACH PHILLIPS:  We’ve had to use them in protection.  See how many times we’ve gotten sacked?  We’ve had to use those guys in protection.  They haven’t gotten out.  We go through our reads.  If people are collapsing on them, should give us a chance to throw to the receivers downfield, which I think we’ve done pretty good.

Q.  On Louisville’s last win in the series coming in 2006.

COACH PHILLIPS:  This is an important game, period.  We’ve talked about that.  The team that has won this game, usually went on and had a pretty successful season.  It’s important.  It’s not important to say the last time they’ve won it, all those things.  That’s not important.  We just don’t want to hear that the last time we won this game, the iPhone 4 was in here.

It’s important for us to win the game because of the success that the winner has had after winning this game.

Q.  Charlie Strong said after the game Friday night you guys were the better team.

COACH PHILLIPS:  I said it the other day.  We’ll get to see.  It’s hard to judge teams when they haven’t played common opponents.  Who knows how well we would have done against Murray State and FIU?  Who knows how well they would have done against Western Kentucky and Central Michigan?  The way to judge that is play each other.  We do play each other this week so we’ll be able to know after this game.

Q.  Is Morgan hesitant to run or are you hesitant to let him run?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We haven’t been hesitant to run him.  We heard the criticism when we did run him.

We always thought for us to have success with him, he’s got to be able to run it because he can be a force.  The guy is 235 pounds, he runs well.  I would say he runs as good as many ‑‑ probably runs better than our tight ends.  That’s moving pretty good.  We’ve always run him.

The thing that Morgan has to do is when he drops back to pass, and he did it two weeks ago, when he drops back to pass, he needs to say, Is he open?  No.  Is he open?  No.  Let’s go.   That’s when you have some huge runs.  We saw that in the first game.

Next guy wasn’t open, lane opened up, he has to pull it down and run with it.

Q.  How has Darrian Miller done in the offensive line?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I thought he played outstanding for us.  He was a guy that got a (indiscernible) for playing good enough to win.  He did have a mistake.

You guys notice him?  Anybody call his name out?  You don’t call the offensive lineman’s name out, they usually have done pretty good.  We think he’s got a chance to be a real talent.

Now, if we can get Billy Joe back, it even brings more depth back to our offensive line.

Q.  How about as a freshman, being able to compete on a college level?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I can tell you this:  there was no one in here that guessed Darrian Miller would have been a starter in a game this year.  I’m happy to have him there because the guy has a chance to be a talent and also he gives us a lot of depth.  You very seldom see a true freshman go in there and play.

When he got here, he was bigger than we thought.  We height and weighted him on his official visit.  He’s done some work on his own.  He’s now 295 pounds.  Still a very lean guy.  Very athletic.  He has long arms.  He uses his hands well.  That gives a guy a chance.

And the kid is unbelievably smart.  He’s an unbelievably intelligent guy.

Q.  On Josh Clemons vision, is that something you can teach?

COACH PHILLIPS:  The guy has vision, has balance.  You guys got to talk to him earlier.  Really sharp kid.  He’s strictly business when he comes in the building.

Q.  If Kentucky looked at Will Stein during the recruiting process.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Stein, his dad and I played together, Matt Stein.  So, yes, we did look at him.  He walked on at their place also.  We offered him an opportunity to walk on also.  Probably the situation was a little bit better there.

He’s become a really good player for those guys.  (He) does a good job of pulling the ball down and running it.  He’s completed 62% of his passes.  Everybody shied away from his height.  His height definitely hasn’t been a factor.  All he’s done is gone out there and competed and competed at a high level.

Q.  Re: players from Trinity High School.

COACH PHILLIPS:  You know, the state of Kentucky, sometimes you can know too much about a home guy.  We’ve got a guy in Luke McDermott was a walk‑on, came in here and went about his business the way he should, has earned the right not only to earn a scholarship but a right to start.  Made a lot of good plays here.

Their center, their quarterback, their kick punt returner, guys that walked on, it says a lot for the program there they have at Trinity.  Our punter is a guy, some years he would have been a walk‑on.  We were just in need of a backup punter at the time and gave him a scholarship.  He’s become a really good player for us also.

Q.  On DeVonte Parker choosing Louisville instead of Kentucky

COACH PHILLIPS:  We don’t worry about the ones that got away.  We’re going worry about him this week because he’s got a chance to play.  Outstanding talent.  He’s got two touchdowns and two big‑time catches in both those touchdowns.  It will be a huge challenge to stop him.  He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, and he has great ball skills.

Q.  If Kentucky’s experience gives an edge

COACH PHILLIPS:  We had four true freshmen playing on offense at one time or another (in the Central Michigan game).  We had three on defense.  They got a lot of true freshmen playing for them also.  There is some experience, but they have some experience also, especially their defensive front.  Their front seven is pretty extreme.

I think it kind of evens out.  In a game like this, none of that stuff matters.  You throw out any numbers, you can throw out age of a guy, throw out any statistics.  This just will be an old‑fashioned, roll‑up‑your‑sleeves and get after each other (type of game).

Q.  You and Charlie have coached against each other so long.  Is it safe to say there will be no surprises; you know what to expect from each other?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, is it safe to say there won’t be any surprises?  I know his team is going to try to get after us, try to heat us up on defense, run the ball on offense, hit the play‑action passes.  The same with us.  That’s what we’ve been.

We’ve now changed our style of defense.  We’ll be a little bit more aggressive on defense.  He’ll have two games (of video) on us now.  Our offense is the same we’ve been the last times we’ve competed against each other.

There won’t be any surprises.  Like I say, it’s an in‑state game that will be old‑fashioned, no surprises, just two teams that will try to bloody each other’s nose.

Q.  Do you feel like the offense finally got its footing in the second half?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We got a lot cleaner.  Looked like we were playing some ball plays.  Last week, I’m not sure it looked like a Chinese fire drill.  This week we had some plays pretty clean.  At times we threw and caught the ball well.

Like I say, our offensive line got on people, stayed on people.  Our backs ran the creases.  I thought we looked a lot better this past week.

  Q.  Question regarding a slow start.

COACH PHILLIPS:  What’s a slow start?  Last week, we had a chance to go up 7‑3.  That’s not a slow start.  It’s 3‑3.  Yes, we were down at halftime, but I don’t know if you can call that a slow start.  I think our guys got the momentum back in the second half and finished the game off.  I thought, like I say, they score, we score.  So I don’t think it was a slow start.

We’ve got to match the intensity in this game.  If they take the momentum, we got to fight and scratch to get it back on our side.  There’s going to be a lot of swings in momentum in a game like this.  We just got to try to keep it a little bit longer than they do.

Q.  You talked yesterday about seeing that effort out of Ridge Wilson.  Is there a specific example you’ve seen in him?

COACH PHILLIPS:  The fourth down, big stop.  I actually saw Ridge Wilson strain into doing everything in his power, throwing every ounce of his 245 pounds into a guy, then releasing him as violent as you can release a person, then going as violent as you could to try to get the stop.

That was encouraging to see.  Ridge has played really good.  Again, he’s been a guy the last two games that our defense has thought he’s played good enough to win.  So we expect him to play that way this week.

Q.  In terms of using Morgan as a runner, is it be careful because you don’t have a backup?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We have to be a little careful.  Morgan has to be careful and smart in how he runs also.  He’s a little bit of an upright runner when he does run.  Can’t take those type of shots.

Another thing, he’s got to get underneath some of those tacklers also, get on the ground.  I don’t expect him, if it’s third down and 10, like it was the other day, I don’t expect him to get on the ground at eight, nine yards.  I expect him to lower his shoulder like he did and get us the first down.  But he’s also got to be smart in how he runs the football.

            Q.  What was your reaction to Randall Cobb’s kickoff return?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Didn’t surprise anybody in that building.  Didn’t surprise anybody here.  The only thing that surprised me of the whole play is he brought it out (from) eight yards deep.  His athleticism, his ability to take it the distance did not surprise me.  His balance did not surprise me.  What surprised me is he did something that the coaches told him not to do, and that’s not Randall.  You saw the next one, what did he do, he kind of caught the ball and got to a knee in a hurry.

None of the plays he made surprise anybody.  I was mentioning that to our guys.  I was talking to Ronnie Sneed, What about Randall?  He said it didn’t surprise him, he knew what he could do.

Thank you.  Appreciate it.

COACH PHILLIPS:  All right.  The injury situation:  Winston (Guy) tweaked his hamstring and Martavius Neloms had a stinger.  Besides that we got out of this game pretty healthy.

They say there’s no such thing as an ugly loss.  Well, we just had another not‑so‑pretty win.  But we are 2‑0.  Probably about a third of the teams across the country are 2‑0.  We found a way to win this one.

I think the turning point was the fourth down.  Our guys did a good job on fourth‑and ‑inches of stopping them, then our offense did a good job of converting to get us back in the game.

Our defense played outstanding after the third series.  I think they scored on the first three series, and after that our defense threw a shutout, which is what we expect for those guys.

Again, we didn’t play very clean offensively, but when the time came to step up, I thought they stepped up and made some plays and got the ball in the end zone and did a good job on the 85‑yard drive.

It was a deal that I asked the guys to pick me up.  It was a deal where on fourth‑and‑inches we could kick the ball and go up two scores or we could go for it and go up 14.

We did a good job of making the play.  Morgan ran the naked.  It wasn’t open.  Tyler Robinson did a good job of blocking the perimeter getting Morgan into the end zone.  We made plays when we needed to.  That’s the name of the game.

Our defense created, I’ll call it three turnovers.  The biggest one was the fourth down.  That was a turnover to me.  We had way too many turnovers, especially one we lose the possession right after the second half.  That’s losing a possession when you fumble on the kickoff return.

But we got a win.  Again, we’ll enjoy this thing and get ready to go next week.

Questions.

Q.  (Question regarding starting fast.)

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I mean, I don’t consider it a slow start.  Our defense held them to a field goal.  Our offense came back and we had an opportunity to get the ball into the end zone.  Again, drop showed up.  I don’t consider that a slow start.  It was an even start.  I think if we make the play, I think we started off pretty fast.

We have to make the plays we’re capable of making.  We’re more than capable of making the one we didn’t make on the first drive.

Q.  (Question regarding the offense struggling.)

COACH PHILLIPS:  Nothing surprises you.  You just got to be ready to play the next play.  The next play was them going for it on fourth‑and‑inches.  Our defense did a good job of stopping it.

Yes, our offense struggled.  I think the energy that the defense went out on that fourth down and created a stop, which is a turnover, I think that fed into our offense and making the big play they made immediately afterwards.

Q.  (Question regarding the passing game.)

COACH PHILLIPS:  I don’t know if we stopped it.  They caught a lot of quick passes in the flat.  We did get some people in his face and got some deflections ‑ some.  Sometimes the guy that’s on the line of scrimmage has to expand to the outside to try to get underneath the quick outs.  A couple times when we did do it, they weren’t able to complete those passes

Q.  Starting with the touchdown pass, is that the kind of offense you’ve been seeing in practice that you want to translate to the games?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We’ve been making some big plays down the field.  That’s what we expect.  The guys have been getting behind people.  We just hadn’t been making them.  We didn’t make them the first game.  We want to throw the ball down the field.

Last week we were two‑for‑two, with the other two being drops.  La’Rod (King) last week was a touchdown.  Gene (McCaskill) had a huge play down the middle last week.  Again, we want to throw the ball down the field.  La’Rod had two big plays.  Those are what we call gap plays, game‑altering plays.  La’Rod had two.  The first one down our sideline got us a chance to kick a field goal in the first half, then the huge play after the fourth‑down stop.  We want to throw the ball down the field.

You have to start with the run.  We have to start with the run, then get people committed to the line of scrimmage, then have an opportunity to stick in it our running back’s belly and try to get behind people.

(Josh Clemons), he gave us a chance when we broke the tackle.  Now your running game gets a little bit more confident, you get a little more confidence up front coming off the ball.  Now it gave us a chance to throw some of the play‑action passes.

Q.  More drops again today.  You talked all week about giving other guys a chance.  Is there going to be more of that?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Those two guys deserved to play, especially if the other guys aren’t making plays.  We’d like to get E.J. Fields in there in the mix also.  He’s a guy that had a good week of practice last week; didn’t get an opportunity this week.

He missed last week because of suspension.  When you do that, guys move ahead of you.  Aaron (Boyd) and Demarco (Robinson) moved ahead of him.

Q.  What does it say about your defense that they were able to gather themselves after the first couple series?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Experience.  Says a lot for their experience.  Those guys have played a lot of football around here, and we expect that.  The good thing is our team did not panic when we got down.  They did not panic.  At halftime we told them, Just relax, play, go out there and play with enthusiasm, have fun doing it, and good things will happen.

Immediately after, we turned the ball over (laughter).  But the defense did a really good job of gathering themselves and getting the stop for us.  I think they threw a three‑and‑out on that possession.

Q.  How did Morgan Newton play?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Again, he’s got to make some of the throws that he’s missing.  We had some real easy, simple throws for him.  We got to create some easy throws early.  He’s struggled a little bit to complete passes underneath.  But I think he’s throwing the deep ball as good as anybody we’ve had here throw the deep ball.  We have to continue to do that.  Say you throw five deep balls, you hit it on three, that’s 21 points, a huge game‑altering play, a game that flips the field also.  We have to continue throwing the ball down the field with him.

Q.  (Question regarding the importance of the victory.)

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, I mean, it was important for us to play well, especially as a team.  I thought we found a way last week.  The defense played really well last week.  The offense did a good job late of putting the defense in a tough situation.  I think that was a good team win.  I think this was a really good team win.  That’s what we have to see.

It wasn’t especially us playing well today going into this game, it was just important for us to play well, period, because of the performance we had last week.

Q.  Talk about (OT Darrien) Miller.

COACH PHILLIPS:  I mean, I looked out there one time, there were three true freshmen in the game.  Yes, I’ve been bragging on those guys, but I didn’t want to see three of them in the game at the same time either.  It was Miller, the fullback (D.J.) Warren, then the tailback Josh Clemons.

Miller had one mistake, one glaring mistake on the sack.  With experience, he will get that.  It was a missed assignment by him.  The linebacker walked up in the gap, he called a squeeze call, baited him, backed out of there, he wasn’t able to get back out on the defensive end.

But I thought the thing with the offensive linemen, if you noticed that he’s out there, then you know he hadn’t played very well.  I didn’t even notice him being out there until I saw two true freshmen going at tailback, started counting them.  Then I noticed we had another one at right tackle.

When you don’t notice them, I thought he played good enough to win.

Q.  (Question regarding Josh Clemons)

COACH PHILLIPS:  He did.  He had some good carries.  I mean, unbelievable run when he broke the tackle.  He showed speed.  We thought he had good speed, but didn’t know if he had that type of speed.  He has game speed.  He missed a couple runs also, which he’ll be the first to tell you that.  That will come with experience also.

But he’s a really natural, really good runner for us.

Q.  (Question on Morgan Newton running the ball)

COACH PHILLIPS:  You know what, everybody gets more comfortable when it’s open, when you block it right.  I mean, he did look comfortable running it when there’s nobody there.  That’s obvious.

But when it’s blocked right, Morgan is a good runner.  We have to run Morgan Newton this year to be successful.  And we’ll continue to do that.

Q.  What can you do to get the defense settled in?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Last week we scored after a turnover.  I think that’s a short field.  This week they drove the ball on us.  The good thing is we only gave up one touchdown, you know, and it was, again, a big play they threw over our head.  The guy made a great play on it.  I think the defense, what they did, they went in and created field goals, which was good for us.

So I view that as a positive, something to build off of, when the defense goes in there and plays their tail off, stops them, makes them kick field goals.  It would have been huge if we went in those first three possessions and be down 21.  I think it was a good job by the defense.

Q.  What do you think this will do to your offense’s confidence?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I hope they build off of this.  We got some good players on offense.  The thing that our guys have got to do is just relax and play.  Our offensive line is starting to play, starting to come together, starting to get healthy.  I think that’s huge.  Hopefully we get the other two guys back.

But we know we’ve got some depth at tackle with the young kid getting the snaps that he got today.  Hopefully we’ll get those other two guys, that were injured, back next week.

Q.  Two games weren’t real pretty.  Is this one better?  Do you feel there was progress?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I think definitely there was progress.  We definitely played better.  We didn’t play very clean in the first half, but I thought we played pretty clean in the second half.

I wanted to tell you guys, we gave the game ball, last week was to (new UK president) Dr. Capilouto, we gave it to him.  Wish I could have put a bigger score on the other end.  But this week I had a young man’s wife come into my office that’s over in Iraq, Marcos Alaniz.  His wife brought in a UK flag with a plaque.  I’ll give you one quick line.  It said, ‘This flag was flown in the enemy’s face.’  I like that.

Then I got a chance to get him on Skype, which is something that Tee Martin just taught me.  He did not know that it was me.  His wife said she talks to him every day on Skype.  I said, ‘Let’s Skype him.  I think I know how to do this.’  We got him on Skype on my iPad.  When he showed up, he had a UK hat on, and behind him you could see a UK flag.  He did not know it was me calling him.

After talking to him, and his wife presented the flag at that time to me, just knowing that we got fans across the country, guys that support us, I got cold chills in talking with him as he teared up talking about our football team, how it’s like family to him.

So we’re going to send the game ball to his wife, send it over to the guys over in Iraq.  I think they’re in Providence, Iraq.  We’ll send a game ball to them.

Q.  (Question regarding Louisville head coach Charlie Strong.)

COACH PHILLIPS:  We’ll see next week.  I mean, we’ll see next week.  When we play those guys, everything goes out the window.  We understand that. It’s become a real healthy in‑state rivalry.  We’ll enjoy this one and get ready for it tomorrow afternoon.

In his first NFL game — and the NFL’s first game of the season — Cobb tied an NFL record for the longest kickoff return in league history and set Twitter ablaze.

His touchdown reception made him the first Packer since Javon Walker (Sept. 8, 2002) to catch a touchdown in his debut.

Jon Hood: “Randall!!!!!!!!! 109 yards deep!!!!! He will not be denied!!!!!!!”

Brandon Knight: “Like I said. Already knew @rcobb18 was gna have a great game. Hard work pays off. Tgbtg”

Joker Phillips: “Randall Cobb to the house TWICE!”

LeBron James: “WOW! #Cobb Big Blue Nation stand up!! UK”

Tennessee running back Tauren Poole: “It doesn’t surprise me at all that Cobb is ballin. I mean he made Kentucky when he was there..”

Cougartown’s Josh Hopkins: “Not trying to get ahead but Randall Cobb is on pace to be the best player ever at anything.”