It’s game day in Kentucky and the team and fans are all getting ready for tonight’s match-up. What’s that, you didn’t hear there’s a game tonight? Western Kentucky vs. Kentucky is set to kickoff at 7:30pm at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, KY. We’ll have a Nation of Blue Live chat tonight during the game so stop back by and join us! In the meantime, we wanted to pass along Joker Phillips notes on the game.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
[B]Offensive keys – Minimize turnovers:[/B] “We’ve got to play fast, we’ve got to play aggressive, but we also have to take away the ball on defense and have to take care of the ball on offense. If you look at some of the huge upsets, that’s usually a huge reason why teams get beat by teams like Jacksonville State and North Dakota State. … We’ve got to protect the ball. You get a punt blocked or a punt return or fumble and give them a short field, that’s what keeps teams like this in the game. It gives them confidence. The longer you give them confidence, the more they feel they’re in the game.”
[B]Defensive keys – Eliminate big plays:[/B] “Continue to up the level of play and be sound in what they’re doing in their fundamentals. We played well, but we got out of gaps a couple of times and gave up a couple of big runs that we cannot do. Nobody rushes for 155 yards on us, and we gave up over 100 yards to one rusher. Nobody runs 80 yards on our defense, and we let that happen last week.”
[B]Key matchup – UK’s defensive line vs. Western’s run game:[/B] “Our defensive line has to do a good job of holding the point of attack. Our linebackers have to do a good job of fitting in and our safeties have to do a better job of getting down in the box and tackling.”
[B]WKU’s strength – running game:[/B] “I like their running game. Anybody that goes into Nebraska and rushes for the amount they rushed for, you’ve got to be concerned about that. We’ve got to be able to account for their quarterback (Kawaun Jakes), who is a runner also. They’ve got a running back (Bobby Rainey) that has rushed for a 150, but you have to account for an athletic quarterback.”
[B]Areas of concern No. 1 – overlooking WKU:[/B] “We talked Sunday and the first part of Tuesday, but after you see how focused they are, you know that these guys will be ready. I haven’t said much since then, but earlier in the week we did talk about it quite a bit. Watching practice, they’re focused and they understand what we need to do to get this game underway. … We have enough good leaders at the top that understand. A couple of years ago, we were a play away from losing to Middle Tennessee. A lot of those guys were freshmen at the time, so they understand that you’ve got to get up to play for every team. Every team has good personnel, no question about that, and personnel that can beat you on any given day.”
[B]Area of concern No. 2: UK’s special teams:[/B] “One time we had seven guys on the field (against U of L) where we had mix-up with our punt safe and our punt return team. We can’t have those things and we’ve got to get them fixed. … We’ve got to kick it to the right place. The punter did a good job of placing the ball this week, but our kickers are still inconsistent. We want to cut the field down into a third. We’re kicking the ball outside a hash. Sometimes we go right, sometimes we go left, but you have to kick the ball to the hash we’ve designated so that we can cut the field in half and cover it.”
[B]UK strength – Hartline-tight end connection:[/B] “I think Mike has practiced really good this week. Both the tight ends (Jordan Aumiller and Tyler Robinson), the game has slowed down for those two guys after playing a game for the first time. They look a little bit better this week than they did last week and could have a big game for us.”
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