Nation of Blue

Football

Joker Phillips on Georgia

Another Saturday dawns upon us and another important day for the Kentucky Wildcats football program. Today it is the Kentucky Wildcats vs. the Georgia Bulldogs at 7:30pm. The Bulldogs are hoping for a big win on the road while the Wildcats are hoping to get another “W” and get a win streak going. Without a win today, the recently talked about SEC title will be out of the question for the Cats. This is a big one…

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So what’s on Joker’s mind as we go into today’s game?

[B]Offensive keys – Clean up the run game:[/B] “We’ve got to run the ball better offensively. We ran the ball just enough to keep them honest last week. We weren’t real efficient at running the football. This week we’ve got to be more efficient running it. … Teams are preparing for the Wildcat differently. You’ve got to spend a little bit more time on it, and I think that helps us that teams have to spend a little bit more time on the Wildcat. The time that they’re taking to focus on the Wildcat, it’s taking from them focusing on our base offense. I like that teams are starting to defend for it. … Georgia’s defense is so athletic. They’re long and athletic and they play physical. They give you a lot of different looks defensively, and they can do that when you’re based out of a 3-4. They have some variations of (the 3-4), but they run a lot of 4-3 looks with it. The thing that gets difficult is throwing downs when they get in the true 3-4 looks where all the blitzes are coming from everywhere.”

[B]Defensive keys – Getting off to a faster start:[/B] “We may have to bring out our orange slices and those things to start faster. We’ve just got to continue to stress playing hard for 60 minutes. We’ve played great in the second half. I think the thing that has helped us in the last couple of games is, in the last five or six minutes of the second quarter, we’ve played pretty good and got some momentum on our side. We did the same thing by scoring against Auburn right before the half and got some momentum. This past week we got a huge play by our defense right before the half to keep them at 18 instead of them going up by 25. I think that gave us momentum in the second half.”

[B]Key matchup – Georgia’s freshman quarterback Aaron Murray vs. UK defense:[/B] “A guy like him, you better mix up your coverage or else he’ll pick you apart because he’s so sharp and understanding the coverages. You’ve got to disguise them, you’ve got to pressure him and you’ve got to mix and match some of your coverages in the back end.”

[B]Joker’s biggest concern – Georgia receiver A.J. Green:[/B] “He’s big, fast and athletic. I know we’ve got a couple of big guys in this league, but he’s probably the biggest, most athletic guy in this league. … This guy has come in and just opened up really a whole new dimension to what they can do. Their running game has increased since he’s come back because you’ve got to account for him by putting a safety over the top of him at times. You can’t put as many people in the box. He’s done wonders for theme offensively. I think it’s opened up things for Tavarres King and (Kris) Durham. I think it’s opened up things for the tight end, and it’s definitely helped the quarterback. You get down on the goal line and you just throw it up to them. He’s in (the same category) with Alshon Jeffery and Julio Jones, and hopefully we can put Chris (Matthews) in that category soon.”

[B]Georgia player to watch for (other than Green) – Linebacker Justin Houston:[/B] “Forty-two is a really, really good player for them. He plays the outside linebacker and will also rush. He’s their hybrid guy. He’s a pass rusher that can put his hand in the ground when then want to go with four down linemen, but he’ll he also stand up and be that linebacker when they go with the 3-4 fronts.”

[B]Kentucky’s strength – quarterback Mike Hartline:[/B] “You’re able to go in with bigger packages with the way Mike is playing because he understands our offense so well. There have been a couple of times that our guys have seen some things that we hadn’t worked on that might work in the game, that we’ve been able to pull out of our bank. We’ve been able to pull it up and call it and Mike has been able to execute it because of his experience and ability to understand our offense.”

[B]UK players that must step up – safety Winston Guy:[/B] “I think Winston has practiced better this week and hopefully he’ll be the difference this week. … I expect him to make more tackles downhill. He’s had two big interceptions, but I expect him to make more tackles downhill, meaning tackles for one- and two-yard gains.”

[B]Final injury report:[/B] Phillips officially ruled out Locke for the second straight week with a shoulder stinger. Despite a nagging ankle and shoulder injury, senior defensive end DeQuin Evans will play this week after sitting out against South Carolina. Freshman linebacker Qua Huzzie is out with an ankle injury.

We need another win today and Randall needs fans to show their support. Let’s show them what we’ve got Big Blue Nation!

[URL=”http://www.ukathletics.com/blog/2010/10/the-game-plan-joker-phillips-keys-to-the-game-5.html”]Source[/URL].

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