Anxious Phillips opens spring practice

Anxious Phillips opens spring practice

By Eric Lindsey on March 31, 2010 2:29 PM | No TrackBacks
Joker Phillips prepared for this day for his entire life. The chance to head up his very first football practice as head coach at the University of Kentucky was bestowed before him.

But Phillips was lost in the rush of practice.

"I didn't know what to do," Phillips said. "I am lost. I had my hand in my pocket and was twiddling the whistle."

Phillips conducted his first spring practice as head football coach of the UK football team Wednesday at the Nutter Training Facility. The team, dressed in shorts with no pads, broke off into position drills at the beginning of practice before a brief 11-on-11 scrimmage.

By the time the team had joined for 7-on-7 passing drills, Phillips had finally found his niche.

"I just tried to dive in," Phillips said. "Started talking about effort, talking about fundamentals. Those are the things that I think I have to stress."

The first day of spring practice was pretty typical. Balls sailed high, the defense dominated and the quarterbacks looked like they have months of rust to shake off.

"There were a lot of balls going all over the place," Phillips said. "We've got to get more consistent throwing the ball. Morgan (Newton) didn't have a good day. Mike (Hartline) had some good and bad throws. And also (Ryan Mossakowski) had some good and bad throws. The thing we're trying to emphasize this spring is being able to be efficient throwing the ball."

Interceptions were plentiful during the 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 throwing drills, but that's to be expected during the first few days of practice. Generally speaking, the offensive unit usually starts much further behind than the defense.

The key for Phillips during the first few days of spring ball is effort and energy. He said he'll be paying close attention to where players' eyes are. If their eyes are in the right place, he will know they are executing their assignments right.

"I really liked the energy," Phillips said of the first practice. "People are communicating. That's the thing you have to do in this sport especially. I think we have to practice a little bit faster. We practice fast and we got a lot of reps, but we've got to get more reps, especially for the young guys. When you get more reps, the faster you practice. We're limited in time so the thing we've got to do is practice faster so we can get more reps."

There were a few subtle practices at Phillips' first practice. Players sprinted from drill to drill to condition and get more reps in during the allotted time.

"We sprint," said wide receiver Randall Cobb, who will enter his third year in the fall. "We're getting our conditioning in during practices instead of having to wait until the end of practices to do sprints. I think that's better. It makes us play a little faster, makes us just move faster and get that sense of urgency in us."

New and old faces made appearances under the bright spring sun. Former coach Rich Brooks stopped by to check on his former players while new defensive line coach David Turner was as animated as any coach UK has had in years. On every other play, Turner sprinted onto the practice field to get in the face of his players or encourage them for making a play.

There are adjustments to be made, Cobb said, but the first day received positive reviews.

"We picked up the energy," Cobb said. "It's real high energy and tempo. It's been pretty good so far."

I'm not sure I like the way this sounds.
I'm not sure if Joker is prepared to be a leader.
He should have led the practice from the start.
Just me being a worrier I guess.
I truly love UK football.

MULECHOPS wrote:I'm not sure I like the way this sounds.
I'm not sure if Joker is prepared to be a leader.
He should have led the practice from the start.
Just me being a worrier I guess.
I truly love UK football.

We can tell by your OBVIOUS support of the coaching staff. How bout you let the guy coach a season before you start questioning his leadership.

Jeez...

Edge

edgehollow wrote:

MULECHOPS wrote:I'm not sure I like the way this sounds.
I'm not sure if Joker is prepared to be a leader.
He should have led the practice from the start.
Just me being a worrier I guess.
I truly love UK football.

We can tell by your OBVIOUS support of the coaching staff. How bout you let the guy coach a season before you start questioning his leadership.

Jeez...

Edge

OK after this reply I shut the hell up and waited. Well I guess I'm not so damn stupid after all! OBVIUOSLY

JEEZ!


By the way Edge........Where you been!

Mule!!!