2010 AU FOOTBALL PREVIEWS: Plenty of weapons return for Phillips, Kentucky
Editor’s Note: This is the sixth in a series previewing Auburn’s 2010 football opponents. This week: Kentucky (Oct. 9). The series will run weekly.
From all indications, Joker Phillips has hit the ground running in his first season as the Kentucky head coach.
Now all he has to do, apparently, is distinguish himself from another hot new coach in the Bluegrass State, Louisville’s Charlie Strong.
“Charlie goes places in Kentucky, and they call him Joker,” Phillips joked with reporters at last week’s SEC meetings in Destin, Fla. “I go to some places that they call me Charlie.
“So I guess we all look alike.”
Fans will hopefully have things figured out by Sept. 4, when the two new coaches square off to open a season that neither hopes is a step backward from 2009.
Phillips is by no means a new face in Lexington. He first arrived in 1981 as a quarterback-turned wide receiver and then returned in 1988 as a graduate assistant. He was the team’s wide receivers coach from 1991-96 and then came back in the same position under Rich Brooks in 2003
. In 2005, he was named offensive coordinator and in 2008, he was designated Brooks’ successor, making Brooks’ retirement after the 2009
season a seamless transition.
As Lexington Herald-Leader columnist John Clay wrote, Phillips has been “tweaking” the way things are done, “not trashing.”
That theme prevailed in his focus on Kentucky’s passing game this spring, which ranked at the bottom of the SEC last year with a 140.3 yards-per-game average.
“For us to get where we want to go, we have to throw the ball much better next season,” Phillips said in an April ESPN.com article.
Phillips has the same available options that he and Brooks had last year with senior Mike Hartline, sophomore Morgan Newton and redshirt freshman Ryan Mossakowski.
Hartline was the Wildcats’ starter through the first half of 2009, but went down with a knee injury against South Carolina — one week before
Kentucky’s upset victory over Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Newton quarterbacked the squad the rest of the way, including a three-touchdown effort against Georgia, but it wasn’t enough to solidify the job in 2010.
The spring revealed few answers, as the battle will resume in August. Hartline, though, has the edge in experience over the two relative youngsters and appears to have a chip on his shoulder.
“It’s my time,” Hartline told the Sports Xchange. “I’m not going to let anyone take this away from me. It’s my senior year and I want it more than anybody else.
“I just want to make everyone aware that I’m putting everything on the line for this team and for us to win football games.”
Auburn fans shouldn’t have a tough time remembering do-everything wide receiver Randall Cobb, who butchered the Auburn defense for 109 rushing yards, including a 61-yard touchdown run, out of the Wildcat formation. He’ll be joined by wide receiver Chris Matthews (32 rec., 359 yards in 2009) and running back Derrick Locke (907 yards, six touchdowns) to give whoever wins the quarterback battle a slew of experienced playmakers.
The offensive line will be reworked, as guard Stuart Hines is the only returning starter. The facelift won’t be as much of a project as it would appear, as a number of projected starters have a decent amount of experience.
The defense, meanwhile, is reeling from the loss of four of its top playmakers in 2009.
Defensive tackle Corey Peters, linebackers Micah Johnson and Sam Maxwell and cornerback Trevard Lindley are all gone, leaving a bevy of holes to fill on a defense that already ranked 11th against the pass among SEC teams in 2009.
The Wildcats will rely strongly on defensive end DeQuin Evans (six sacks, 12.5 tackles for loss in 2009) and the team’s leading returning tackler, linebacker Danny Trevathan (82 tackles) to help fill the voids both from a production and leadership standpoint.
Kentucky will need more from just those two players to get back to the postseason bowl scene for a fifth consecutive season. Junior-college transfer safety Josh Gibbs is considered a favorite to start right away, and defensive tackle Mister Cobble could make an immediate impact after redshirting the 2009 season.
“I know we are still considered the weak link,” defensive tackle Ricky Lumpkin told the Sports Xchange. “But I know for a fact that we’re changing that around. I see guys flying around. I have faith in this defensive line that we can do it.”
agribble@oanow.com | 737-2561
Auburn at Kentucky
When: Oct. 9
Where: Commonwealth Stadium
2009 Record: 7-6
Final Ranking: N/A
Bowl: Music City Bowl (21-13 loss to Clemson)
All-Time Record vs. Auburn: 5-24-1
Last Meeting: Oct. 17, 2009 (21-14 win)
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