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UK Football: No secret what win - and program - means to Joker

October 16, 2010|By LARRY VAUGHT | larry@amnews.com

UK coach Joker Phillips gives defensive back Randall Burden a hug after the Cats's huge 31-28 win over South Carolina Saturday. (Clay Jackson photo)

LEXINGTON — For weeks Kentucky coach Joker Phillips had been saying his team would not quit and had not lacked effort even when it lost to Florida, Mississippi and Auburn.

The first-year Kentucky coach kept insisting his team was just a play or two away from “making noise” and justifying the confidence in he had in the team.

Saturday night his Wildcats proved he was right by rallying to stun No. 10 South Carolina 31-28.

“What we have asked our kids to battle back from and then to see the rewards ... We asked them to battle back after a tough loss at Florida and they played their hearts out at Ole Miss,” Phillips said. “We asked them to battle back after that loss and they did when we played Auburn. Then we asked them to do it again. That’s three tough losses and to ask those guys to battle back from those losses and give us the type of effort they did all week ...”

Phillips said he sensed Friday when the players left to stay at the team hotel that they were going on a “business trip” and the head coach did not panic after the Gamecocks shredded his defense and shut down his offense the first half. Instead, he stressed patience and execution just as he had a week earlier against Auburn when UK barely missed pulling off the same type rally.

Phillips, a Kentucky native, didn’t try to hide what the win meant to him — or the program.

“It means the world. Everybody knows what this program means to me. I am a small town Kentucky boy getting a chance to lead the program he has grown up loving and a lot of folks said I was not supposed to love this place,” Phillips said. “I guess I am stuck. I made a decision in 1981 that I loved it enough to come here (as a player). To be able to lead this program and seeing these young men living out their dreams is dream to me and I am living it.”

He’s living it so much that he even hinted that UK is not out of the SEC Eastern Division title chase despite its 1-3 record. The Cats still have to play Georgia, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Tennessee, but South Carolina leads the East with two losses. Florida has three losses after being upset by Mississippi State Saturday.

“We have to get wins. I still say 5-3 will have a chance to win in the East. It will have a chance,” Phillips said. “But the only way we can be 5-3 is if we win tonight.”

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