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Liberty Bowl Update: Phillips' new 'Sumo' drill impresses players

January 01, 2009|LARRY VAUGHT

MEMPHIS -- Because he was looking for ways to help make Kentucky's offense more physical, Joker Phillips came up with a new drill.

He created what he called "Sumo" to originally help make receivers more physical to improve their blocking.

"We get in a circle and see who can who knock out each other first," said Phillips, UK's offensive coordinator and coach in waiting. "It created a lot of enthusiasm. The kids had fun during bowl practice with it."

One player who impressed Phillips during the drill was sophomore Kyrus Lanxter.

"He started putting a face on people and I hope it shows Friday (in the Liberty Bowl game here against East Carolina)," Phillips said.

Junior receiver E.J. Adams got to come to Wednesday's press conference with Phillips because of his improvement during practice the last month. Adams admitted he enjoyed the "Sumo" competition.

"We are trying to hype each other up in practice with the different things we do. You just hit in that drill. Nobody likes to really just go tear each other's heads off, but it is competitive and fun. You can do anything inside the circle. We started with the running backs and then the defensive backs got involved and it even got more fun," Adams said.

He had two running backs he didn't like to be paired against.

"I definitely didn't want to get in there with Moncell (Allen) because he is too short and it is hard to get up under him. I never liked going against John Conner even when I was on defense, so I didn't want to see him too much," Adams said.

And who did he dominate?

"I beat them all, honestly. I only lost one time, and that was to Kyrus in the bowl practice. I beat him a whole bunch of other times, but he got me pretty good this last time. But that was it," Adams said.

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