Each week head coach Joker Phillips shares his thoughts on the upcoming game and how his team has prepared for the opponent. This week, Joker is talking Florida. I think the focus this week is simple, put an end to the win streak and go 4-0!
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[B]First key to the game – Use the Gators’ speed against them:[/B] “You’ve got to be ready to pick up all the blitzes and all the jumps they do. You’ve got to make them pay sometimes when they do it too. When they blitz, we’ve got to throw and catch, we’ve got to get hats on hats because, when they do blitz, there are creases in the run game. If we can get a hat on a hat in the pass game, there should be some receivers running open. We’ve got to beat one-on-one coverage.”
[B]Second key to the game – Win the turnover battle:[/B] “It’s a great matchup. I was looking at the conference stats, and we’re second in the league in turnover margin. We haven’t turned the ball over. They’re first. They turned it over five times, which means they’re pretty darned good at taking it away. Taking it away 12 times, that’s a plus-seven turnover margin. You would think a team that hasn’t turned it over in three games would be top in the conference, but we’re not because they’ve created a lot of turnovers.”
[B]Third key to the game – Confidence:[/B] “We have addressed about not being intimidated by The Swamp and the atmosphere and the (Florida) helmet, but we haven’t talked about the streak. This is a different team. A lot of them don’t even know there is a streak, especially a lot of the young guys. We’ve been focusing on not getting caught up in the atmosphere and not letting the atmosphere intimidate you.”
[B]Florida’s strength – Speed, speed and more speed:[/B] “Speed is always the key when you play this team here. This bunch runs well at every position. That’s what they do. When Urban (Meyer) took over the job, he said they wanted to recruit the fastest team in America. He probably has done that. We’ve got to try to match that. You match their speed sometimes by being physical.”
[B]Matchup to watch for – UK’s special teams coverage:[/B] “In big games, you always stress special teams. It’s usually the difference, and it’s been the difference in our game the last couple of years. We’ve got to go toe-to-toe, our special teams versus their special teams. … (Joe Mansour) has improved in kickoffs, no doubt about that. Last week he was outstanding. He kicked a few of them in the end zone. I think he kicked half of them in the end zone. If he can kick half of them in the end zone and then kick the other half exactly where we want it, we feel good about our ability to cover. … All of our coverage teams have to cover well. We have to cover well on our kickoffs and we have to block well on our punts, which means you can’t get a punt blocked. I think those are the matchups that will be major in this game.”
[B]Florida player to watch for – Florida DBs, Demps:[/B] “They’ve got a safety and a cornerback in the defensive backfield in (Ahmad) Black and (Janors) Jenkins that you always have to have an eye out for. … There won’t be games that you’ll see this year with as many dynamic players on offense as you’ll see Saturday. We think there are three (Demps, Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke) because we feel like Locke is one of those guys too.”
[B]Kentucky players to watch for – Mike Hartline, safeties:[/B] “Hartline has to play well for us to have success offensively. And then our two safeties have to be outstanding for us to have a chance in this game.”
[B]Final injury report:[/B] Tight end Nick Mellilo will miss his third straight game. Offensive guard Stuart Hines will not make the trip with a sprained ankle. Fullback Moncell Allen (hamstring) will make the trip to Florida but is questionable. Danny Trevathan, who suffered a broken left hand against Akron, will play with a cast on.
[URL=”http://www.ukathletics.com/blog/2010/09/the-game-plan-joker-phillips-keys-to-the-game-1.html”]Source[/URL].
It is going to be a hostile stadium today. The Cats will have to focus. The Cats can win this one and become the SEC spoiler game of the year! GO BIG BLUE!
