Kentucky Football: Did Joker Phillips Make The Right Call?

Letting the team build confidence in any of the three quarterbacks would have been better than waiting until two weeks before the first game.
All three had been through two spring practices or more. Two of them have confirmed proformances against SEC teams. All three should have been evaluated in the spring.
Not being ready is wrong.
Isn’t the ‘coach in waiting’ thing suppose to be for easy transition and having some one the coach knows and the players are familar with?

What interest is stirred by this posting.
Next time try to mention Cal is probably going to attend the game or something.
Its a shame football is so unimportant to the fans of the Big Blue.
Guess no one cares.

Tell me what to remember? Saying I agree with you is baiting?
Sorry you have to take everything I say as baiting you. LOL

Oh, yea and thanks for welcome back.

IF he does not get us into trouble, then we will get our 7 and call it a decent year. I just think that even though Newton or Mossakowski are not locks to get us the 7, they give us a better shot at 8,9,or even 10 wins.

We have heard about the athletic ability of both the younger men and it would cause more worries for the opponents. Maybe the race was so close we’ll see them in the Louisville game if the offense is unproductive early.
Thanks for commenting on football.

I didn’t get to read it.
See, I’m the outcast from Poker Flats around here.
Notice the welcome I got for agreeing with the author of this post?
Football is MY major sport at UK. I have season tickets in both sports and support the entire athletic program. I do question the direction several of the teams we have and the lack of actually seeing who might have been interested in the job at UK in football.

And all this time I thought it was about getting the best eleven guys to take the ball down the field and across the goal line.
Maybe he’s saying we don’t have enough of those in that eleven to push the other eleven down the field and in turn we don’t have eleven on the defense to stop their eleven from getting to the goal line.
Just joshing you.

j/k :)

I heard and this is just a rumor at this time, that one of the new basketball players actually glanced att he stadium as he as driving down Tates Creek Road.
That makes it a certified that football is actually played on the campus of the University of Kentucky.

Granted, I’m no Hartline fan but he has proven to be a heady player. Rarely does he get sacked, he knows when to throw the ball away. Like most fans, he regularly disappoints me in his passing ability but I see Joker postponing this decision for a few reasons. First, if Hartline had been named at the end of spring he might not have put out the effort this fall to get better (whether he did is another topic altogether). Also, the fall competition among the QBs also gives Mossy/Newton more reps with the first team and in Joker’s mind he may feel (hope, hope) that before the season is out one of those two will be directing the team. It’salso a chance to give one more chance for Hartline to produce or become a mentor, its now or never and if he doesn’t produce and gets pulled, he won’t see the field again.

If Newton had been named the starter, past history indicates Hartline would go into a funk and be less than his current level as a backup. In naming Hartline I think Joker left himself more attractive options when if it doesn’t work out; if one of the others were named starter and it didn’t workout it could get real ugly. I’d rather go ahead and give Hartline his last chance and get it over with. We are going to be a run first team regardless of the quarterback.

I do agree with your assessment of Newton. He certainly didn’t have the “fireworks” his dad spoke of prior to the Auburn game last year and many of his decisions were questionable. He pulls the ball down too quickly and tries to make something happen with his feet. He is a pretty good, strong runner but he’s not on the level of a Pat White or Michael Vick who are much more elusive. When he doe pass, if its not the first receiver in his progression he hurries the pass and often overthrows the receiver.

Oh, well. Now we wait but IT"S ONLY 7 DAYS TIL KICKOFF!!

we are not just a running team. It was because of Newton that we became a run first team. I believe UK will try to be a 50% pass / 50% run team but will end up closer to 60% run / 40% pass. You can bet that UK will try to get the ball in the open to Cobb, Matthew’s, King, and Lock. The Hartline choice was a no brainer to me as long as he came back healthy. I am not sure Newton doesn’t eventually become a receiver because he probably won’t beat out Moss next year. People forget it was Moss that was a 4 star HS QB, Newton was a 5 star athlete but only a 3 star HS QB.