by Paul Jordan
Now that Joker officially has the job, what is he going to do with it? Most experts think that things will be mostly “status quo” but there are a couple of early things to look at to get an idea of how the Phillips era may go: the coaching staff and recruiting.
You would think that since this was a “head coach in waiting” promotion and not a total new hire, there will be some stability in the coaching positions. But the big question on the staff is “who will fill Joker’s shoes” as offensive co-ordinator/head coach of the offense. If this is going to be a smooth transition, you would think that Randy Sanders will continue to keep his “Offensive co-ordinator/QB coach” title. This was Sanders first year as offensive co-ordinator and he shared the duties of developing the Wildcat attack with Phillips.
Offensive playcalling seemed to be the main concern of more than a few fans and you have to wonder if Phillips is a “more of the same ” guy or if he will look outside his staff to fill that position. Personally, I would like to see Sanders stay as QB coach to help develop Newton and Mossakowski, but really don’t know how much of the play calling last year was Phillip’s, Sander’s or a hybrid of the both. The appears to be a three way QB competition for next year, so I would expect this decision is a priority. UK also has a new offensive line to meld together. I would hope that Jimmy Heggins would be retained as OL coach. We will look at the coaching staff in more detail later.
Secondly, UK is in the midst of wrapping up a recruiting class. There should be no worries here as Joker has been heavily involved with the recruiting and I would assume most of the new recruits figured that it would be Coach Phillips sooner rather than later. Joker does have a few recruits coming in this weekend and you would wonder if he will be accepting commitments to fill the class or leave a couple of spots open to allow for any late moves on signing day.
Adding to the offense may be a priority position as the status of Derrick Locke seems unclear at best and there are still a couple of WR prospects that Joker would like to add. Contrary to some speculation, it does not appear that there have been any defections from UK’s recruiting class thus far, so there really is not a lot of room to play with.
Usually at this time of the year, we are more concerned with this year’s class and not next years. UK does have two 2011 commits however and both are ESPN top 150 players. I would take this as a sign that the player personnel and recruiting classes are in the right hand with Joker at the helm.
There is lots more to look for in the days ahead and the WBB will stay on top of any changes in the UK staff. I will try to take a look at some of the visitors for this weekend and a look at football recruiting a bit. Look for that tomorrow on the site. And in case you missed it yesterday, here is footage from Joker’s press conference yesterday. Just seeing this and the emotion from Joker makes me feel that we made the right choice:
Wildcat Blue Blog will stay on top of the Joker Phillips transition as events occur. But UK does have a basketball game on Saturday, so keep checking in on the WBB and Paul will have his preview of the UK/Georgia game soon.
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