Kentucky Wildcats Football Postgame Conference 9/10/11

Two Up Two Down
A win is a win. That would be the best way to sum up Coach Joker Phillips take from today’s game with Central Michigan. It can be understood that the fans would be upset with losing to a MAC school for the first two plus quarters of a home game, but when push came to shove the Wildcats did what they needed to do to get the job done. As Joker put it , “They say there’s no such thing as an ugly loss. Well, we just had another not-so-pretty win. But we are 2-0. Probably about a third of the teams across the country are 2-0. We found a way to win this one.”

Minimal Injury

“Winston (Guy) tweaked his hamstring and Martavious Neloms had a stinger,” said Coach Phillips, “Besides that we got out of this game pretty healthy.” With two starting offensive lineman and WR Brian Adams already out due to injury, getting out of today’s game without little injury is a major plus. And it would seem that the two injuries today should be healed by next week’s game.

Shaky Start Leads to Strong Finish on Defense

“Our defense played outstanding after the third series. I think they scored on the first three series, and after that our defense threw a shutout, which is what we expect for those guys.” Sloppy tackling can easily be pointed to for the porous start on defense. If guys focus on bringing the man down more than highlight hits, then they will be fine.

In addition, Joker said about his defense, “Our defense created, I’ll call it three turnovers. The biggest one was the fourth down. That was a turnover to me.”

Big Plays on Run and Pass

“We’ve been making some big plays down the filed. That’s what we expect. The guys have been getting behind people. We just hadn’t been making them. We didn’t make them. We didn’t make them the first game. We want to throw the ball down field.”

Josh Clemons on his big run, “I ran through the hole and I felt him hit me. I thought he was going to wrap up but he didn’t. When I felt that, I looked for a hole. I found one and I took off running.”

Morgan Newton’s pass for the long touchdown looked great, but he didn’t think it did, “I’m going to be honest, I thought I overthrew him. Everyone was yelling lets go deep right here, and he was wide open down the seam. That was a huge play for us and changed the momentum.

CMU Head Coach Dan Emos

On going for it on fourth down to give UK the momentum, “Fourth and inches and we ran one of our base plays. That’s what we do. We came here to win not to play not to lose.”

On UK’s second half adjustment, “They just started getting (Josh Clemons) the ball. I don’t think he carried it in the first half. That was the big adjustment.”

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