The interview with UK Head Coach Rich Brooks and quotes from defensive end Jeremy Jarmon and wide receiver Dicky Lyons Jr. are from the SEC Football Media Days, held July 23-25 in Hoover, Alabama.
COACH BROOKS: Good morning. Pleasure to be back here again. I think that we had a very interesting year last year. We were on the verge of doing some great things. Didn’t quite finish the season the way that I would have liked to.
But I think we became a viable team in the SEC East. I believe we’ll be a viable team again this year.
Defensively we should be the best defensive team that I’ve had at Kentucky. Our defensive front is outstanding, our secondary, our linebackers. We have depth, competition and experience.
Offensively we lose a lot of very, very productive players that are not only on the SEC charts, but obviously on the Kentucky charts of offensive production.
But I feel very good about all of the positions returning on offense, the people that have an opportunity to replace them. I think that we’re gonna be a very good offensive football team. We have talent at runningback. I think it will be, again, the best offensive line. The same statement I made last year, I’ll say it again this year. This will be the best offensive line we’ve had since I’ve been at Kentucky. We have four talented runningbacks. Quarterback is yet to be resolved between Hartline and Pulley.
The receiving position, other than Dicky Lyons, who has had two great years back to back, is still up in the air. I would say the receiving position is the biggest question going into the season as far as who’s gonna be second, who’s gonna be third, who’s gonna be fourth. It’s possible freshmen could play a role in that pecking order, if you will.
I’ll just open it up to any questions.
Q. There’s five coaches in the league that have won national titles. Some have won Bowl games. Talk about what it’s like coaching in this league, the level of competition.
COACH BROOKS: Well, I think it goes without saying that the coaching talent in this league is unbelievably high. It’s a great league from X and O standpoint, coaching expertise. Nobody in the country can even come close to saying they have five coaches in their league that have won national championships.
It is a league of great talent. Defensive speed is outstanding in this league. And just day-to-day, week-to-week great league.
We were one of the teams that everybody used to think they could put an automatic W up next to as they went into the season. It’s not that way any more. The depth, the quality of teams in this league from top to bottom is as strong as any league I’ve ever been in.
I think it pretty much has proven true over the last two years for sure that any team can beat any team in this league.
Q. That doesn’t include the NFL, does it?
COACH BROOKS: It does include the NFL. You know, other than the NFL, there’s no better football league in the world, in the country, because we’re pretty much the only ones that play it now that they’ve disbanded NFL Europe. But it’s just an unbelievable league. It’s a meat grinder every week.
Q. You talked about the runningbacks, the four you have. Can you comment on Tony Dixon, his health. He’s obviously battled some injuries.
COACH BROOKS: Tony is our most experienced back. He’s struggled with injuries. He’s never had a healthy season. He’s a play-maker. I think that he goes in to fall camp as the number one guy. We have Alfonso Smith, who also has had injury problems. A young freshman by the name of Derrick Locke who played and had a major role on our team last year. And Moncell Allen, who is the most physical back at the tailback spot at about 225, 230.
So I think the competition is going to be great. What we need to find out is whether Tony can be a bell cow, whether he can be the guy that can carry the heavy load, or whether it will be runningback by committee, if you will.
Right now I would lean, if I had to guess, I would guess that it might be a little bit more by committee because the top three producers have had some injury problems. They’re not the biggest guys in the world. And this is a very physical, tough league. So for a smaller back, if you will, to survive without injury in this league is very difficult.
Q. I wanted to get your thoughts on three of your defensive freshmen: Antwane Glenn, Antonio Thomas, and Cartier Rice.
COACH BROOKS: Well, I think Antwane Glenn and Antonio Thomas are redshirt freshman. Cartier Rice comes in as a true freshman. Antwane had shoulder surgery at the completion of spring practice, is not fully back to complete strength yet. He will participate in two-a-days as we start fall camp, but it will probably be limited. We need to be a little careful and make sure that he gets his full strength back.
I think that both he and Antonio have a chance to be contributors this year. Cartier Rice comes in in a position where we have some players at corner, but I think he is a guy that we’ll look very hard at the first couple of weeks to determine whether he has a role in the nickel or dime package, and, you know, decide whether he’ll play this year or redshirt.
I think all three of those guys have an opportunity to help us move forward.
Q. You had talked about the strength of the SEC just a few minutes ago. I was wondering, the balance of power in conferences, do you think it’s a cyclical thing where one league’s on top for a few years, and now the SEC is having its moment here, or is there something about the quality of football in this area of the country that could allow the league to stay on top for quite a while?
COACH BROOKS: Well, I think it is a little cyclical, if you will. Sometimes, you know, I know the PAC-10 has had years when they’ve had five or six teams win Bowl games at the end of the season. The Big-10 has been strong and done the same thing. The Big East, the ACC.
But year in and year out, if you put it on a graph, I think you would see that the SEC historically year in and year out is, if not the strongest, one of the strongest conferences, period. I mean, it isn’t even close. You look at starting rosters in the NFL. You look at NFL rosters totally. The SEC has more players than any other league in the NFL.
It’s just a great league. I mean, it will change a little bit year to year. One team has a run of being very, very good, and they might fall off. And by “falling off,” that means they’re not playing for the SEC Championship or National Championship, they’re just winning Bowl games or playing in Bowl games.
It’s great in my mind that now we’re part of that conversation. We intend to stay there.
Q. You talked about being part of the conversation. You’re competitive. What is the difference now between Kentucky and, say, Georgia, Florida, which are the two top teams?
COACH BROOKS: Well, I want to tell you the difference isn’t what it used to be. When I got to Kentucky, the first year we had one player that could run under 4.5. Last year we had 17. We have the first and second fastest player that I’ve ever hand-timed in Derrick Locke and Alfonso Smith. We have more speed. We have more talent. We have players that are capable of playing at Florida and Georgia and Tennessee.
I think that we’ve closed the gap on the talent level, which is the biggest significant difference in Kentucky football now versus four or five years ago.
Q. You mentioned your defense. Could you elaborate on how it will be better and how integral that is to the fact that you all have closed the gap?
COACH BROOKS: Well, I think that, first of all, defense in this league is what has ended up winning the championships. You look at LSU last year. They were an outstanding defensive team. Florida the year before was an outstanding defensive football team. Yeah, were they good on offense? Yeah, they were really good, but they were great on defense.
We haven’t been great on defense. We’ve gotten better. Two years ago we had a great year of take-aways, but we gave up too many yards, too many points, too many third- down conversions. Last year we gave up fewer yards, our take- aways weren’t quite as impressive. Our third-down defense still wasn’t quite as good.
But we now have what I would call quality, all-SEC- type defensive players. In the secondary, Trevard Lindley, Marcus McClinton. At linebacker, Micah Johnson, Braxton Kelley. In the defensive line, Jeremy Jarmon, Myron Pryor, Corey Peters; you know, Jenkins. We’ve got guys that belong in this league on defense. And we haven’t had that at every position in the last five years.
I believe we have people lining up on 11 positions on defense that can start at a lot of schools in our league, and I’m talking about a lot of the big-name schools. So I think that this now has a chance to be clearly the best defensive team that I’ve had.
We need that to happen this year if we want to be viable because the best teams in this league have great defenses. And we haven’t been a great defense. We’ve been improving, getting better. But I believe that this year you’re gonna see a significant step on the defensive side at the University of Kentucky.
Q. Just wanted your thoughts on your quarterback position. I’m sure it’s tough to replace a guy like Andre’ Woodson.
COACH BROOKS: The battle is between Mark Hartline and Curtis Pulley. They finished in a virtual tie. I thought both of them performed pretty well in the spring game. Neither of them at this point has shown the efficiency in the passing game that Andre’ did. They both have strong arms. They both can throw the ball well. But I think the vertical game needs to improve by both of them, and we need to work more on that.
They’re both better runners than Andre’. I think the sack total will go down because they’re more athletic guys that can pull the ball down on a broken play and make something positive happen.
Curtis is faster. He runs under 4.5. He’s a 4.47 guy. But Hartline is a good and willing runner and a good athlete. You know, it’s gonna be an interesting competition. I feel good about both of them. And it’s conceivable that both of them could see action, more so than, say, what has happened at Kentucky over the last two years, where Andre’s taken virtually every snap.
Q. Could you talk about Joker’s future at Kentucky, the decision to go ahead and put that in line?
COACH BROOKS: Yeah, I think I’m very, very pleased obviously this past January to have conversations with our athletic director and president, and have them agree to move forward with – for a better term – coach-in-waiting because I’m one of the elder statesmen, if you will, in the SEC. I’m a relative youngster compared to a couple of my good friends in coaching, Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden, but I am still a relatively elder statesman.
I did not want the recruiting efforts of Kentucky to be hurt by the “impending retirement,” or old-age rumors where there may be a change in philosophy, a change in coaching at Kentucky now that we’ve gotten over the recruiting process that, Why would you want to go to Kentucky because you’re never gonna be in a Bowl game. We’ll, well, we’ve been in Bowl games, and we’ve beaten Clemson and we’ve beaten Florida State the last two years.
So that part has been negated, and I didn’t want recruits to think that the old man up here, you know, may not be there for the next four or five years, that there would be continuity, we did have a plan, and Joker Phillips is as qualified as anybody in the country to become a Division I head coach.
Q. I was wondering if you could reflect on your previous matchups with Bobby Petrino when he was at Louisville and what you think he adds to the conference coming in.
COACH BROOKS: Well, he’s obviously got a 4-0 record on me, whooped me up the head pretty good. Had some very good teams at Louisville. He’s inheriting a very good program, moving into Arkansas. Houston Nutt had done a great job there over the years.
I’m sure it’s gonna be an interesting game based on the fact that we came from behind in the fourth quarter against Arkansas last year. They come into Commonwealth Stadium this year. I’m just hopeful that we can be a factor like we were and beat some of the better teams in the SEC.
Q. I was trying to get your opinion on a couple of issues: the concept of an early signing period, would you like one, and when would you like to have it? Also, the plus-one, the commissioner has wanted to keep the status quo with the Bowl system. Would you like a plus-one?
COACH BROOKS: I’ve been in favor of plus-one, to answer that first. I think you can have the BCS — have a vote after the BCS on who the top two teams are and have them matched up in a championship game either one or two weeks after the completion of the BCS.
And let me say this: I’m pretty outspoken on some things. For college presidents to get up and say class attendance is a problem for football players is ridiculous. Football players miss less class time than any NCAA sport, period, bottom line.
You look at all of the other sports. They’re gone. They compete during the middle of the week. They travel. We leave on Fridays, usually after classes are over. If they miss anything, they’re only gonna miss a Friday afternoon class. It’s just a ridiculous argument to say class time is a problem.
What was the first part of the question? I got carried away on that one.
Q. Early signing period.
COACH BROOKS: I’ve been in favor of an early signing period. Finally some of the other coaches in our league saw that way, too. And then it went to the presidents and athletic directors at our conference meeting, and it was voted down at that time.
I have a hard time, again, understanding other sports can have early signing, and it’s not a major problem. I think it’s a cost-saving measure. It’s a clearing-up matter, if you will. If somebody commits to you, sometimes those commitments are solid. Sometimes they’re of convenience.
If there’s an early signing period, you declare whether it’s convenience or whether they’re committed to you. You don’t have to spend as much money monitoring the recruiting process.
The proposal I thought put forward by the SEC coaches that the signing would be the 1st of December, which means most of the high school seasons would be completed, except for some of the teams in the playoffs, state playoffs. The fact that they didn’t have to have — they couldn’t have an official visit to sign early means one team wouldn’t get an advantage of having somebody in during the season on an official visit.
Now, we all know, I mean, our summers are hectic right now because juniors, seniors-to-be, come to our campus all summer long with their parents, on their own. They check the colleges they’re interested in. They visit the academic centers. They visit the facilities. They look at everything about the university, and they do it on their own pretty much. And we’re fortunate that we’re in a part of the country that has a great population base within a 10-hour drive of Lexington, Kentucky. And most of the SEC teams have the same thing.
So I’m obviously in favor of an early signing period.
Q. Do you have a timetable for how much longer you’d like to coach? What is your take on tweaking the play clock rule again and any other rules that jump out, any changes?
COACH BROOKS: Well, I’ve just had a four-year contract extended a year last year. The reason I wanted to do it is to dispel rumors. I don’t have a timetable. I’m not sure. I’m gonna be 67 in August. Health is always a concern and an issue. I’m completely healthy. I’m fine. But if I’m not a year from now, I want to have something in place. And it’s in place. I’m very encouraged by that.
The clock rule, it’s pretty interesting because why don’t we make a change and stay with it a couple of years and see how it works out rather than having knee-jerk reactions and changing it every year?
I’ve dealt with the 40-second rule in the NFL. That’s not a problem. And now to gain a little more time back and shorten the game, I guess, which some people are totally unconcerned with, and other people are very concerned with the length of college games, now on out-of-bounds plays we’ll wind the clock, except for the last two minutes.
You know, I mean, I don’t mind. But I’d just like to leave them alone for a while so you don’t have to go in and not only teach blocking and tackling and securing the ball and stripping the ball and all the football fundamentals, but every year now we’ve got to address new clock rules with the players. It’s just kind of foolish, in my mind, that you tinker with it in a three-year cycle like we have with the clock rule.
Q. With the kind of lucrative salaries that SEC coaches make, I was wondering if that changes your perception of coaching, whether that’s others’ perceptions or the pressure that comes with that?
COACH BROOKS: The salaries don’t change my perception of coaching at all. It’s a little shocking to me that I make what I make. It’s even more shocking when I see what other people are making.
But it’s just — it’s a sign of the times, I guess. Is it a little out of balance? Yeah, I think it is. Do we earn most of the money we make? I’d say, yeah, we do, because we’re under pretty tight scrutiny. We’re responsible for a lot of things that happen with 120-plus players probably: academics, off-the-field, winning and losing, filling the seats, driving the engine that provides the money for a lot of other athletes in other sports.
Is it a little crazy? Yeah, I’d say it’s probably a little crazy.
Q. You’ve been in the NFL where teams seemed to be locked in often in sort of height, weight and speed at different positions, those parameters. How much do you bring that to the college game? How much do you follow that sort of same blueprint when you’re recruiting?
COACH BROOKS: Well, I believe — you know, I sit up here and talk about we finally have some SEC-looking guys in our defensive front, and the speed. So I think it’s very important. But I also think it’s important whether a guy’s a football player or not.
Obviously I don’t set strict standards on height, weight and speed in my recruiting. Otherwise I wouldn’t have Derrick Locke, small, diminutive-size runningback that a lot of the big 8 schools were recruiting as a corner, but they didn’t think he was big enough to be a runningback. Well, he came in as a freshman and did some outstanding things against Arkansas and LSU last year, ran for over 500 yards, proved to be a pretty talented runningback at the highest level in football.
We will make exceptions to height, weight and speed. But we also put into the equation that there’s gonna be growth and maturity. Some of the players, like Jeremy Jarmon, for example, when he came out, he wasn’t a 285-pound guy. He was more like 220. But he could run, and we thought he had good bone structure, would grow into his frame. And he has. He’s become a big-time player.
So I think you have to project a little bit. I suppose the higher up the food chain you are, you can rely a little more on the height, weight and speed thing. But if you lose some of those height, weight and speed five-star guys, the best thing you can do is get a football player who may end up being better than a five-star guy who doesn’t fulfill his potential.
Q. When you see these rankings and polls out of head coaches in this league, you see your name 11th or 12th. Given what you’ve accomplished in the last two years, do you see that as a slight to you or more a testament to how strong this conference is in the head coaching fraternity?
COACH BROOKS: I can’t say that I’ve never seen that, because I’ve seen some of those things. But I don’t take anything personally. I think we have accomplished some things at Kentucky that I think are fairly significant in Kentucky football history. But in the grand scheme of things, in the SEC, it probably hasn’t been that dramatic.
I would say that whoever’s coaching at Florida or LSU or Alabama or Georgia or Tennessee is almost always gonna be ranked ahead of whoever’s coaching at Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Whether that’s justifiable or not, you know, who cares? I mean, that’s just the way it is.
Q. Given the fact that you and Bobby Petrino were formal rivals for a number of years, what’s your relationship like with him? What was your reaction when you first learned he was coming back? Is there any awkwardness if you ever see him around the state or at meetings or anything like that?
COACH BROOKS: No. We saw each other at the SEC Media Days. We talked, shook hands, said hello, just like we normally would. You know, one of our rivals is supposed to be Tennessee, as well. But we haven’t beaten them in so long that Phillip and I have become pretty good friends. He loves the death out of me (smiling). We’ve lost a couple of tough ones back to back against him. So he likes me a lot.
You know, I think a lot of those things are overrated as far as rivals, coaches getting into each other and all that stuff. I mean, he’s done an outstanding job at the University of Louisville. He took them to the best season in their school’s history. Thumped us on the way. We were able to rebound from that and go to a Bowl game two years ago and beat them at Clemson.
We’re a different team now than we were back when he was coaching at Louisville. You know, he’s coaching in a different environment. Coached one of my old teams that I ended up was an assistant with who went to the Super Bowl with the Atlanta Falcons. You know, that departure wasn’t smooth, but he’s back at a place that he’s, I’m sure, very comfortable. He’s an outstanding football coach and he’s coaching at a great school.
It’s just another SEC game against another good SEC coach and a good SEC football team. Every week’s that way.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.
COACH BROOKS: Thank you.
Kentucky
Defensive End Jeremy Jarmon
Thoughts on the coming year
We got off to a good start last year. It was disappointing because we lost some games late and we were a more confident team and had goals of winning the SEC. Going into this year, our goals are the same. We’re going in feeling we can compete in the SEC, and that’s what we’ll work towards.”
On the team’s goals?
“It’s easy for us to see that people doubt us. People read the magazines and tell us that we’re always picked fifth or sixth in the SEC East. I tell people it’s easy to put on the University of Kentucky uniform week in and week out because you know that there are people that doubt you.”
On the team’s progress
“I’ve been a UK fan all of my life and I’ve watched them lose close games in years past, so to be there and win games in overtime, it gives us confidence. When you beat LSU like we did last year, it gives you confidence that you can go anywhere and take on anyone and compete and win.”
On the SEC’s overall strength
“This league is filled with good players. It’s fun to have teams play in your stadium and to go on the road and know that you’re competing against the best in the nation and against guys that will be playing at the next level next year.”
On the team’s defense
“We have a lot of guys coming back, eight guys coming back and key reserves. We have a lot of great guys, our front four, we’re blessed to have the depth we used to not have.”?
Wide Receiver Dicky
Lyons
Jr.
Thoughts on the team’s offense
“The freshmen are coming in, the two quarterbacks are stepping up, so things are starting off okay. There’s always some of, ‘this is how we do things,’ for the younger players to learn, but the offense is coming together. Andre Woodson was a great player, and you can’t replace him, but that’s what the great thing is. We have two quarterbacks that are very different. One’s a drop-back passer and the other can run really well.”
On growing up in New Orleans but coming to Kentucky
“I grew up as a Kentucky fan in Louisiana . When I was young, I follow football closely, I didn’t even play it until I was in high school so I didn’t follow the team too closely. I went up when I was young to see my dad’s jersey retired, and they were wining so I thought they were good and didn’t really think anything else. Later on, I realized they were in the national scene and needed just one or two more guys to put them over the top so that’s why I, and others, came there. We had guys that believed in their hearts that they could compete in this league, and that’s what we’ve tried to do.”
On preseason expectations
“They said the same thing two years ago – that we have a tough schedule and couldn’t compete – but we started 6-1 and proved them wrong. You’re always going to have naysayers, people trying to put you down. For me, being a 5-11, white guy as a wide receiver, you’re never expected to play in the SEC in the first place so it’s all bulletin board material for inspiration to prove people wrong.”
