Kentucky Football: Open Letter To Joker Phillips

But he isn’t better than that. Cobb and Locke, that shounds like a law firm, made Joker look good last year. And last year, UK wasn’t all that good. And this year, UK is horrible. There isn’t any positives. Hal Mumme’s teams might of lost a lot of games, but they scored 40pts losing those games. Brooks might of had a losing record in the SEC, but he did beat teams like LSU from time to time, and dominated UL. And Brooks was a much better recruiter and game planner. He was a better coach. And I am not a Brooks fan. So I do believe that Joker isn’t better than what you think. He isn’t a very good coach, and UK isn’t a very good team. Joker will be bringing that lambs to the slaughter when SEC play begins. UK should fire him at seasons end and go hire somebody that knows how to win, or at least put some points on the board and make the game competitive and fun to watch. I think Mike Leach is waiting by the phone.

He did bring in a new D-coordinator to shake things up. If he were to bring in a young, innovative offensive mind after this season, I would be willing to support that direction. He’s not been a afraid to make changes.

I’ll never live long enough (69 currently) to see the day when we’ll be competive against the top boys in SEC FB.

I’m hanging on. I can see a rope to grab on to.
I have nothing else to add here. My morning rants are all spent.

Will we look back at this fiasco as the turning point in Joker’s tenure? We can only hope Joker has the huevos to turn this offense on its head and install a system that uses the talents he has on the roster. Let me say, I was excited when Joker was named coach and hope as much as anyone that this potential feel good story of his success comes to fruition.

Jumping on the “fire Joker” bandwagon would be very easy but he still is only working on year #2 and he can’t be so easily dismissed, even at seasons end. I’ll fully back him for this year and wish him and his team nothing but the best; however, the clock has begun on him making the giant strides required to get this program to field a respectable product. I’m not establishing championships as the criteria for success, only competitiveness. We are nowhere close at this point.

Joker is riding the Newton train to Armageddon so far. I’m waiting to see the "improved" Newton we’ve heard so much about. Opening drive of the game – fantastic. Very composed and in command of the offense. Then some, shall we say, interesting play calling that backfires gets him frustrated and he goes into a funk. When he goes south the offense falls apart, he’s not leading. I really wish I could see games in person to watch him off the field. Every time the cameras catch him on the sidelines he’s being stroked by Martin and Woodson. Is that a leader? He should be rallying his teammates, creating urgency, showing some emotion; not just sulking like a kid that had his favorite toy taken away.

barnhart needs to get Dr. Phil for this team. Like many of you, I had high hopes for Joker and thought it would be a great story "when" he gets success. Hopefully, he’ll get there, there’s still a chance. Realistically, something has to change – playcalling, quarterback, schemes, attitude, something.

Simply give us a quarterback that leads the team, through ups and downs, one that can avoid the sacks, one that can work with ALL his receivers. I simply don’t understand why others aren’t put into game conditions to see how they produce. I certainly hope its not pride preventing Joker from admitting that maybe other personnel and offensive schemes could work better than our current design. Could it really be worse than what we’ve seen these last three games?

Simply give us an attack that uses our strengths. Joker said he’s been building team speed but our offense looks like it was designed in the Big 10. Try some motion, different formations(two backs, pistol, wildcat…), maybe our great line would be more productive in a faster styled offense, look at the success you had finally using the TEs. Try something different. Oh, and "mobile" quarterback does not necessarily mean designed running plays out of the shotgun. Get that talented line and Newton out into rolling pockets, misdirection, anything but at least don’t make it so easy for the defense.

Joker has been fully involved and at times in charge of recruiting over the last 5 years. These are his players and by all accounts they are better than what we have historically recruited. In his words they are bigger, stronger and especially faster than what we’ve had before. There is still time to produce, the season is young.

run your quarterback and try to do it when he can’t run it. Maybe Morgan can run against our defense in practice but that does not look to hard to do. Set running plays for Morgan do not look to be the cure but Morgan should be able to run out of the pocket when all of the receivers are covered and it would make our offense much stronger. The coaches telling us all pre season how good our “O” is has turned out to be a very large disappointment and makes it hard to believe anything the coaches tell us. I understand the injuries but if they are so good then they are suppose to have the depth because you can’t be the strength of the team if you don’t have depth in football. I am very frustrated with the play calling and I think it is time for Joker to start calling the plays. We new our offense was not very strong but our defense looked to be much improved, especially against the run, until yesterday. The defense didn’t do their job and we lost. Minter had done a very good job of making adjustments in the previous two games, but yesterday that didn’t happen.

His numbers were quite good. He has things to work on – like looking over the field, checking off, and his accuracy sure could be better. But his accuracy was pretty good last night, he didn’t throw a pick. He still suffered from a drop on a long pass play on the first pass of the game, then went 8 for the next 8. Two complete passes were fumbled near the red zone resulting in a turnover and of course the end of the game first down became a fouth down.

I am ok with Newton. The O-line and receivers (and play calling) are a different story.

I dont ‘expect’ them to win each week, so I don’t take it so hard. I keep reminding myself that this is UK football. You hope for the best but fear the worst. UK just doesn’t have the horses to compete with the big boys. They have enough talent to compete with UofL but their players have come together faster than ours. You just have to know who you are and right now we are SEC bottom feeders.

Seven says we need to know who we are and I agree!

Who we are is a school that named Joker as the coach in waiting in order to provide continuity in the program. I personally HATED the concept but in theory it was to continue or even BUILD on what Coach Brooks had accomplished. The comparison of Joker’s first year+ and Coach Brook’s same period just isn’t valid. Coach Brooks was cleaning up a mess and almost starting over. Joker had at least the foundation of several years of relative success. Yes we lost some very important players but what college team doesn’t year to year? Strong comes into a HUGE mess at UofL and yet with a backup QB playing most of the game puts up 4 touchdowns against a home team that would have trouble scoring against Trinity HS. Our best defense was the whistle guy!!

Who we are is a school where we whine about this but it will probably go on for at least another 2 years.

Who we are is a school where football brings in 35% of revenues compared to men’s bb bringing in 21%. YET…….wait for it……..WE SPEND ALMOST A $MILLION MORE ON B-BALL!!! Admittedly my business degree is from UofL but where in the wide wide world of business does this make sense??

Who we are is a school where this makes PERFECT sense!!

Who were are is a school that plays in the toughest football conference in the country and yet we act as if it’s a cost of doing business so we can play b-ball in the same conference. We seem to have an almost institutional acceptance of mediocrity in the football program as long as we have b-ball season to look forward to.

Who we are is IU in blue or Duke in darker blue!!

Finally in my humble opinion….who we are is a football program going in one direction while our little brother’s program is going in a very different direction.

I don’t get it …. bottom feeders, lets just get back to basketball and happy with 6-7 seasons, because its better than 2-10. That statment makes me sick, maybe more so than most of you and I tell you why. I live in Florida about 30 mins outside of Gainesville(yes it sucks) and I can’t believe I’m saying this but maybe we can learn something from the swamp lizards. When I was a kid I went to every game I could when UK and UF played, and I always heard the same thing every year, after a basketball win it was " WAIT TILL FOOTBALL " and after football loss it was "THIS IS FOOTBALL COUNTRY ". They are a football school and we are a basketball school seems to be an acceptable answer, but is it, I dont think it is. How many basketball schools have 70,000 fans show up to watch a football game four times in 08 and 09 and three in 07? (just saying). But now they win at football and at basketball every year , so are they just a football school? The answer is, not anymore! The fans got tired of losing in basketball so UF went out and got a good basketball coach and I dont have tell you the rest. Now UF is a SEC dominant school and UK is still a basketball dominant school. Higher education means you’re smart enough to learn from your mistakes(just wondering how kentucky would be viewed if they would have bought 2 cadilacs back in the day, just saying). In the SEC you have to bring your football game, and we have brought it to some games in the past couple of years, but not every game for sure. So an open letter to Joker is needed, but the next open letter needs to be to Mitch.
 Dear Mitch,
   Go buy us a cadilac
                        with love for UK
                           a true fan

No, UK will never compete for tops in the SEC in football just as Auburn will never compete in basketball. Deal with it. I have….You simply cannot compete with schools who’s main focus is football, just as they really can’t compete with us in basketball. We are never going to be able to compete with Alabama, or LSU, or Florida, or even Tennessee on a consistent basis. It is what it is.

I hear this a lot, and do not necessarily completely disagree, but what does “The SEC Excuse” have to do with yesterday? Or the game before that? The last time our progam even played a SEC team was November 27, 2010. That is 295 days and 5 games ago.

So who have we played in the last 295 days?: Pittsburgh, Western KY, Central Michigan, and Louisville.

Last time I checked, none of those teams are in the SEC. Take a moment to really think about each of those games. Think about the last 295 days. Think about the state of the program.

Forget about ‘The SEC Excuse’ for just a moment.

.

As much as I appreciate A2 and a host of others putting their full weight of support behind football, I have to ask myself, "What would ParisGuy have done in this situation?

You and I both know that Joker is fighting a fire with a willow switch here. I pointed out to all who would listen before the season started that when you lose 78% of your offense, and you do not have experienced backups in place it would make for a long year, but I guess optimism superceeds common sense every year in July and August.

Bottom line is this, we are not going to beat anyone until this team finds it’s leadership. I think that Danny Trevathan and Winston Guy can fill that roll, but they must be willing to step on some toes (both coaching and players) and cross over into the offensive huddle and start challenging their manhood. We heard whispers of Randall Cobb and his “attitude” he expressed when last year’s group started dogging it when they needed to step up, and now we know that is exactly what is needed here. The only difference is that they need to start in Joker’s office and work their way down.

Like you, I have come to like Joker Phillips. If for nothing else, his reverence for all things Kentucky has to be admired. But Joker needs to understand this. For all of our hammering of Rich Brooks when he started, Brooks started from scratch with nothing but two sticks to rub together trying to get a spark. Joker inherited a fully functioning SEC football team with 3 straight trips to the best of the mediocre bowls, and a 3 year winning streak against Louisville. In one afternoon, on our home field, against an opponent which on paper was not as good, on record was not as good, and in reality was not as good, threw all of Rich’s progress out the window. Now, he can recover, but as of right now, the Cats are looking a losing season dead in the eye for the first time in what, 5 years?

We are not going back to the dark ages, just to let Joker get his feet wet. Too many impressive young coaches out there looking to make a name for themselves. Time to step up, or step off. His choice.

When Steve Spurrier took over at South Carolina, he was supposed to lose in his first season. But instead South Carolina had a 5 game SEC winning streak, beat teams like UT and Florida, went to the Independence Bowl, and won SEC coach of the year. Last year South Carolina clinched the Eastern Division Championship by killing Florida 36-14 at the Swamp. South Carolina beat a #1 ranked team in Alabama, played in the SEC Champisonship game, and Spurrier was named Coach of the Year again.

So yeah Glenn, if UK could ever get to the point that South Carolina is at in the SEC, I think everybody and their cousin would be happy. If UK is playing in the SEC Championship game, than UK has a chance to play in a BCS Championship game. I would take what South Carolina is doing over beating them once every so often. And if you think UK has that potential, than you are agreeing with all of us. That is all we are saying. We just don’t think they have that potential with Joker. Nor did they with Brooks. I truly believe that a better coach can change that.

There is a reason that Spurrier was successful at Florida and now South Carolina. Same thing can be said about Nick Saban at LSU and Alabama. I don’t think it is coincidence nor do I think it is geography. It is knowing the game of football, and recruiting the best talent you can get to execute a good game plan. Even if UK can’t get the best talent in the land, they could get some really good talent with a big name coach at the helm. And several years of good talent that is coached up can turn into a team that can compete in the SEC.

Call me not a true fan if you like but I stand by my assertion after the first two games of the year that this team will go 3-9. They’ve shown the same level of competitiveness in all three games this season and if that continues, which I have no reason to believe it won’t, they will not win a single game in the SEC.

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly want them to. I just don’t believe that they will do it.

genuinely hope you are correct that they wake up after getting pummeled. At this point I just have a see the performance to believe the performance attitude. Especially from our receivers and O-line in particular. And this might sound petty because he’s played relatively well considering but, for the love of football, someone tell Winston Guy that he has arms he can use to help when he tackles.