Sept. 26, 2009
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Kentucky Head Coach Rich Brooks
On the injury situation …
“Justin Jefferies had an Achilles tendon and we re-taped that and he was hobbling pretty good. T.C. Drake got a pretty good thigh bruise. Christian Johnson went in for x-rays with a rib contusion. And John Conner, we didn’t know about it until late, but he had an AC sprain in the right shoulder.”
Opening statement …
“I am very frustrated. I am embarrassed by the way we played. I felt like I had never coached a down in my life the way we came out in that first 15 minutes at home, it just didn’t make much sense. It was eerily close to how we played last year in the first 15 minutes. They were playing at a totally different speed then we were and that has happened in a lot of games quite a few years ago and it happened to us in this game last year down there. It is embarrassing to me because I think we are a little bit beyond starting out a game like that. I didn’t do a very good job preparing my football team to meet that challenge out of the gate. We responded a little bit better near the end of the first half and little bit more energy in the second half even though I am sure they lost their edge there a little bit as well.
On top-ranked Florida …
“Very tough loss and they are a good football team. They are the No. 1 team in the nation and there are a lot of reasons for that. Offensively they do a lot of good things, but no one gives their defense enough credit. Their defense is extremely difficult to move the ball against – they are big, they are athletic, they just don’t give you much and they make it extremely difficult to move the football on them.”
On UK’s nine penalties in the game …
“We obviously had some procedure penalties that were stupid, just bad coaching penalties, my fault. We had some others, holding penalties. When you play a really highly-ranked team sometimes those flags fall at the most inappropriate times. We completed a couple of nice passes after we had already scored one touchdown in the second quarter and they were negated by penalties. We had more penalties in this game then we have usually in three games. Some of them there is no question that we deserved and that is my fault. There were some pretty stupid penalties. Alignment – we had some guys that just kind of blanked out about getting lined up on the line of scrimmage, just crazy stuff.”
On the Florida blocked punt for a touchdown …
“They did pretty much what they did a year ago. They loaded it up in the middle and we allowed someone to pop through and again, point the finger at me on that because we should have never allowed that again after having two of them blocked last year. That block also came after a penalty when we didn’t have enough men on the line of scrimmage, kind of like what happened to Louisville last week when they had to kick off after being offsides and we took it for a touchdown. We got one because of a penalty a week ago and we gave one up this week.”
Kentucky Players
#91, Corey Peters, DT
On the game and if he is surprised at the outcome …
“I am a little surprised, but it is what it is and we can’t really go back. Ifeel that we were prepared mentally and we talked about how fast it was goingto be, but I don’t think that we were as prepared in that aspect. As far as knowingour assignment, I think that we were prepared. There is no real way to be fullyprepared for the speed.”
On if Coach Brooks putting most the blame on himself is deserved …
“Of course he is going to say that but I fell like it is on us. Like I said,once we settled down I felt that we knew what we were doing. They were not doinganything that was too different but we just have to play better. I guess thatwe are going to have to practice a little bit harder and go full speed all day,every day and try to simulate that in practice.”
On how critical the mental errors were that Kentucky made …
“Those are definitely devastating. I felt like there in the first half we startedto get some positive plays, negated by something negative. You can’t have thatand we weren’t able to get any momentum throughout the entire game and that waslargely due to the mental errors and stuff like that. The majority of the defensiveplays that were big plays were mental mistakes as far as alignment and stufflike that. Even things that aren’t as glaring as holding penalties and stufflike that were mistakes.”
#4, Micah Johnson, LB
On what Kentucky has to do defensively to get better …
“I don’t think that it was necessarily a lot of mistakes. Just on certain playsthey had us out numbered on the edge. A lot of times they had more people toblock then we had defensively. They did a lot of motion too. It was not thatwe were playing bad. I do know that we have to tackle better, No. 1, myself included.I missed a couple of tackles and we can’t win games tackling the way we did tonight.We really have to tackle better and just understand what the offense is tryingto do.”
On how frustrating it is to get down early and not be able to crawl out of the hole …
“It is tough. When you get down like that it is really hard to climb out of itwith a team that is as great offensively and defensively that Florida is. Wejust can’t come out like that. I felt like it was close to the same thing thathappened to us last year, when they came out and jumped on us. We didn’t havea chance.”
On what he is feeling right now …
“It is down. The guys are not happy and they shouldn’t be because we lost. Butit is the third game of the season and we have nine more games. We have the No.2 or No. 3 ranked team coming in here. Yeah we want to win and we may have beenable to come close but that is a lot of `what if.’ After tonight, this game isover and then we have to get ready for Alabama.”
#94, Taylor Wyndham, DE
On falling behind early …
“It was fast. I mean, Florida is the No. 1 team is the country and a really goodand fast team. It is upsetting that we fell behind, but we have to bounce backand come back next week and get ready to play.”
On if the Tim Tebow sack …
“What happened was that the tackle blocked down and I was unblocked and camefrom the corner and hit him. It was just a normal hit. I didn’t really thinkthat much about it. He is a big guy. I just thought that it was a normal playand a normal hit and everything.”
On if he was surprised that Tebow did not see him coming …
“I was a little because he is a left-handed quarterback but I think that he waslooking downfield when it happened.”
#86, Ross Bogue, TE
On the mood in the locker room …
“I would say shocked more than disappointed because we truly believed we couldcome out and play with Florida, play with that caliber.”
On if the team was disappointed …
“Sure, we were embarrassed today. Florida came out and played well and we playedawful on offense coming out first three or four drives.”
On Coach Brooks taking all the blame …
“He can’t say that at all, we knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into.We knew we had to come out and hit them in the mouth and we knew if we didn’tdo that there would be a very slim chance to stay with Florida.”
#5, Mike Hartline, QB
On if he had a tough time finding rhythm on offense …
“It’s difficult when you start off with two penalties, some of the penaltiescan’t happen but since they did you have to take care of the football down there.You don’t want to do anything dumb to give them the opportunity to score. You’rein that situation you just have to do the best you can with it and do betternext time around.”
On if UK was intimidated …
“We definitely didn’t want to be intimidated coming in, I’ll tell you that. Weknew what kind of defense they had that they were very strong very, athleticand they played hard. We thought our game plan was good, we watched tape fromthe week before. When we make mistakes like we did on offense it’s going to seemlike were intimidated.”
On what UK needs to solve before hosting No. 3 Alabama Saturday at noon …
“I think its practice harder, practice faster. I didn’t think we had a bad practicelast week for Florida I thought we had a good game plan. We knew what we weredoing we just have to do it faster and harder. There is game time speed and SECspeed and we just have to pick it up.”
#41, Sam Maxwell, LB
On the start of the game …
“Very tough first quarter, I admit they have a really good offensive scheme.It took us awhile to get back on track, they had us on our heels a little bitbecause of the scheme but in the second half we felt like we caught on to itmore and could be more aggressive.”
On if UF surprised UK …
“No they didn’t surprise us. You know what Florida is capable of but they areso good at their basic stuff it makes this team really hard to beat.”
On how UK responds …
“Preparation will start tomorrow. We get in, we chop it up and get ready forAlabama. We got to set our sights on it. We have to be more physical we haveto bring our A game.”
Florida Head Coach
Urban Meyer
Opening statement…
“I want to start off by telling you about how Tim (Tebow) is. We believe it’s a concussion. He got hit pretty good. He’ll be fine. The game, we played against a good Kentucky team, team that has won three straight bowl games; team that we consider to be one of the upper echelon SEC opponents, in a hostile environment. They [Florida] came out and played hard. We’re not weak. College football isn’t all about playing great defense. Our guys were really charged up and came out hard after a really difficult week. I love these guys. They’re there for each other. They pray for each other, it’s really cool. With all the negativity of college athletics, it’s really neat. I wish I wasn’t the only one who got to see it, I wish some of you could see that.”
On the status of Tim Tebow …
“He was dinged a little bit. He didn’t lose any feeling. They checked memory and all that, he’s fine. Our medical staff, I have to take my hat off to them, especially for this week getting some of these players ready to play. I don’t know if Tim is going to stay overnight in Lexington. I don’t know if he lost consciousness, I don’t know all that.”
On the flu and Tim Tebow…
“We were without Tim for about a day and a half. He was in isolation all day yesterday. Right at the end of practice Thursday he came up to me and had a look on his face, I know that look and I don’t like it. But the trainers worked, I can’t tell you how fast they worked. It’s the way it’s supposed to be but they did a phenomenal job. There were a lot of guys sick and the staff got them ready to play today.”
On John Brantley being the quarterback against LSU…
“Oh yeah. We will probably have a different game plan like you saw, a little more under center and some more drop back like you saw.”
On the first quarter…
“We have so much respect for Kentucky, but we practiced real hard this week. Some of the guys who didn’t really get to practice much came out and played very well. I thought the defense was pretty good. They haven’t played the way we’ve wanted them to. Coach Strong did a great job, he showed the tapes from last year and compared them to ones from this year and they weren’t the same, as far as the team getting to the ball. But they did it tonight. It was about as good a first quarter as it gets from any Florida team I’ve coached.”
Florida Players
#12, John Brantley, QB
On possibly competing against LSU…
“I think I’m mentally ready. We have great coaches who can get us ready. I’llbe ready and I know the team will be ready if that is the case. I have plentyof play-makers around me and I don’t have to do everything. I can rely on theplaymakers and they’ll do a great job.”
On Taylor Wyndham’s tackle of Tim Tebow…
“My first reaction was to think, `I hope he’s [Tebow] okay.’ I saw it happenand it was a nasty hit, and I just hoped he was okay. I think I overheard coachsay he was okay and he was talking. I didn’t want to bother him. I just wantedhim to know I was there for him.”
On entering the game to replace Tim Tebow…
“My purpose was to get in there, hold on to the ball and protect it, and getout with a win. I needed to do what we do, get a good drive and get a touchdown.The guys had a lot of confidence in me, and it makes me feel good that they haveconfidence in me.”
#83, David Nelson, WR
On Tim Tebow and backup quarterback John Brantley…
“We know he is a tough kid and he will do whatever he can to get back in thegame. Don’t get me wrong, we need Tim Tebow in the game at any given moment,but at the same time John Brantley can step in and do tremendous things for us.We have the satisfaction of knowing Tim is going to do everything he can to getready, but if some reason he can’t, we have a great quarterback behind him.”
On the blocked punt…
“I knew the game plan was to go after a punt, because they really wanted a blockedpunt this week. They thought they could get one. The last thing I saw was (Chris)Rainey bust through the middle of the field and block it, then the ball wentup in the air and he happened to get underneath it and cover it. It was importantfor us and Coach Meyer to block a punt this week. He really wanted it this week.”
On the first quarter…
“The past couple of weeks we have been lackadaisical in the first quarter andslow to start. It took a few plays to get us going today. We wanted to get toa fast start this week and take the crowd out of it to get the momentum to ourside. We had a great first drive where we had to settle for a field goal. Wehad no problem moving the ball and the defense held them to 12 yards.”
#56, Maurkice Pouncey, OL
On what went wrong when Tim Tebow was sacked …
“There was pressure and he is supposed to roll to the right and get out quickbut he didn’t and he got hit, it was no one’s fault.”
On what it says about the team to continue playing after Tebow’s injury …
“We have great chemistry on the team for guys to just pick up the rifle and keepplaying”
On being worried after seeing his quarterback down …
“Yeah, I was very worried. Anytime a big-time player goes down everyone’s worried.I’ve never seen him like that, not for a period of time.”
On how tough it is to play the rest of the game after your quarterback leaves with injury …
“Our quarterbacks know the system. (John) Brantley’s a good quarterback and heknows us good and he did us real good today.”
#55, Mike Pouncey, OL
On quarterback John Brantley stepping in for Tebow …
“Were still going to run the same offense, Johnny (Brantley) just has to makethe plays that Timmy (Tebow) makes out there. I think he did a great job today.”
On the feeling a loss of energy on the sidelines after Tebow’s injury …
“When you lose your offensive leader and team leader it takes a blow out of youroffense. We rallied together with Johnny B. (Brantley) and did a great job finishingthe game.”
On having such a successful start of the game with a such a high number of sick players …
“We got off to a real good start, we scored a lot of points in the first quarterand we just started playing good and had to finish strong in the fourth.”
On Tim Tebow’s effectiveness although he’s been sick the past few days …
“Timmy played real good. He played like a champion out there today and we’rejust sad he had to have an injury like that.”
On any long term thoughts after seeing Tebow hurt …
“I was thinking about him right now because his safety is our main concern. Iwasn’t thinking about next week or who were going to play coming up. I was justworried about Tim’s safety.”
