An open letter to Joker Phillips: The time to turn around Kentucky football is now
By Paul Jordan
Dear Joker,
Call me delusional. Call me deranged. Call me out of my mind. But I still think that you can get it done at Kentucky THIS YEAR. Let’s be honest. I cut you some slack going up against LSU and fully expected a 49-0 loss or similar. Believe it or not, I saw some positive signs from your Wildcats in that loss to LSU and I really hope that you can build on things this week.
The good this is that the toughest part of your schedule is over. LSU is going to make a lot of teams look ridiculously bad and Will Muschamp will find that out this weekend. Now that LSU is behind us, let’s look at the schedule and see if we can get this team to a bowl.
I’m still mad about the Louisville loss, and we have to steal a game to make up for it. How about this weekend at South Carolina? believe me, the Gamecocks are not a ranked team, despite coming in at the number 18 spot in the latest polls. They fell a whole eight spots after losing to what I think is an average Auburn team.
Can Kentucky be average this week? Can they be better than average? If so, you have a chance to pull off a big road win and even your record at 3-3, which is right where everyone in the world had you after six games this season. As you already know, it all starts with the offense.
East Carolina, from the mighty CUSA, hung 37 points on the Gamecocks. Dominique Davis had 260 yards and 4 TD’s passing against the USC defense, mostly on short routes. Georgia scored 42 points on Spurrier’s defense as well and Aaron Murray passed for four more TD’s and true freshman Isaiah Crowell rushed for 118 yards. Even the vaunted Navy rushing attack gained 274 yards against these Gamecocks. You can argue that the Gamecocks have played better recently, but Auburn ground out 246 yards on Saturday night. Make no mistake, this is not a LSU or even a Florida defense. There is an opportunity to score som points and face it, isn’t it time to open up the paybook and go for broke?
Secondly, Stephen Garcia is as Charles Barkley would say, turrible. He’s barely completing half his passes and has thrown for four TD’s versus nine interceptions. His numbers are worse than the much maligned Morgan Newton but tell you what. I will take Morgan Newton’s deep passes versus the wobbling ducks Garcia has been throwing all season. The key is to find a way to get your receivers catching the damn ball.
I suggest consulting either a hypnotist or Lester Hayes to help with that problem. True Hayes was a safety, but perhaps he can turn you on to a new indistinguishable form of “Stickum”. Face it, Lester was not inconspicuous when it comes to Stickum, but maybe the technology has evolved in the last 30 years,
I know that there will be challenges with knocking off the Gamecocks, most notably Marcus Lattimore. And Alshon Jeffery. But someone has to get the ball to Jeffery, right? And Garcia is not doing that this year. So it all comes down to stopping Lattimore. You have two defensive coordinators. Have them devise a strategy.
After South Carolina, it’s all gravy the rest of the way. Not a ranked team on the schedule and both Mississippi games are looking very winnable at this point. But things have to turn around before we can talk like that and to get the faith of the Big Blue Nation back, we need to beat South Carolina.
I know it’s asking a lot Joker, to demand a win over a ranked team on the road, but you kind of owe us after that loss to Louisville. Seriously, we lost to the team that lost to Marshall and FIU? It’s a wonder that I don’t turn on you right now, just thinking about that Louisville loss, but you can make it right this weekend.
Beat those Cocks. That is all.
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