Coach Hal Mumme
On the UK/U of L rivalry:
“I think it’s a relatively new rivalry. It’s one that’s good for the state and is good for football. We’re going to have a packed house. The players all know each other, at least the ones from this state.”
On Louisville:
“They are big, athletic, and well coached. They are a good football team. It will be a huge challenge in our first outing.”
On UK true freshman fullback Derek Homer:
“Derek’s a complete football player. We’re certainly glad to have him. He’s performed in training camp better than most freshman do. He was in shape. He was very attentive in meetings. He picked up our scheme very quickly. So he obviously came over here ready to play. We’re going to give him the opportunity.”
On his goals for the preseason camp:
“We wanted to make sure we had our young guys in the right places. That was one of our top goals. The next thing was to get some cohesiveness going into the season. We wanted to be playing as a team with the defense, offense and special teams. We feel like we’ve gotten as close as you can get to that in training camp. We also wanted to see how much we could polish our offensive and defensive schemes. We’ve come to the point where we’re not going to get much better until we play a game.”
On Louisville’s Chris Redman:
“Chris (Redman) is a great player. He’s one of the better quarterbacks to ever come out of the state. I personally like him. He’s the kind of guy we would have recruited. He’s a guy that can really hurt you. He can do lot of things with the ball in both the short passes and medium passes, and throws the deep ball well. If you don’t take care of business and cover everybody, he’ll find the open man.”
On Kentucky’s defense:
“We have the folks in the right places we believe. I think they understand the basics of the scheme we want to run and what we’re trying to accomplish. I think they’ve come a long ways as a defensive unit. For us to get a lot better now we have to play an opponent and see what kind of mistakes we make and who plays harder when the bombs start going off. That will be the next big challenge for them.”
On what makes a great quarterback:
“Leadership ability, throwing to the right receiver, knowing the offense, being able to see the field, being able to have good pocket feet, being a good person and having great character. I think Chris (Redman) has all those things as does Tim (Couch).”
On Tim Couch:
“I think he’s done a great job. He’s mastered our offense. He did it very quickly in terms of learning terminology, and what we wanted on each play and when we want to call them. In our offense, the quarterback has to know what all the other 10 guys are doing. Tim’s done a great job of growing in that area. He has a lot of physical skills and he’s done a good job adapting them to our offense. The third thing is he has a great work ethic. I think its a great example for the other guys. He’s a great leader by example.”
On the media attention at a Division I football program.“At VSU the last five years, I did an hour call in show on Monday nights and had to drive over to the radio station to do it. Here I have to drive somewhere in town. Tonight it’s in Louisville, obviously to help us in that area. In terms of time, it’s exactly the same. There’s just more of the media that shows up. There’s more people that call in (the coaches’ radio show). My wife had to call in (the show) at VSU.”
Kentucky Football Player Quotes
OG John Schlarman
On the UK-UL Rivalry:
“There are a lot of fans split between Kentucky and Louisville, so this is definitely a big thing in the state. The young guys are going to learn quickly. When we go out there for the game on Saturday, with the stands packed, it’s going to hit them that this is a big rivalry. The coaches have watched the film from last year and the year before and they can tell that there is a lot of electricity in the air. When it comes right down to it, everyone is going to see what it is all about on Saturday.”
SS Tremayne Martin
On being a captain:
“The coaches have put the focus on being a man and leading by example and not with our mouths. When we’re out in public we act like a gentleman and not do anything to hurt the team. As far as being a captain, it was something that I felt in my heart that I wanted to do. My parents asked me if I felt like I was capable of leading this team, and I felt that I was. This is my senior year and this is the way that I wanted to go out at Kentucky.”
CB Littleton Ward
On hitting in practice:
“We hit in practice, maybe not as much as other guys do, but we do hit. The only time we don’t really hit is when we are one on one. Coach doesn’t want us to bring the wide receivers down, which I can understand since we don’t have that many numbers there. Coach has it so that we stay hungry and when we hit on Saturday, we’ll really be ready to hit. We’re still getting good work during the practices that.”
LB Bob Holmberg
On the start of the season:
“We’re really anxious to get started. We’re ready to go against someone else now that camp is over. We were getting restless in practice.”
On the team chemistry:
“This team is the closest team I’ve been on at UK. That’s a credit to Coach Mumme and his laid-back personality. His attitude makes it easy to play for him.”
On the defense:
“The defense is more of an attacking defense. It’s the same 4-3 scheme from last year. Our defensive tackles are going to make more plays. (Defensive Coordinator) Coach Mike Major puts more emphasis on speed.”
QB Tim Couch
On the offense:
“If we can go out and execute this type of offense, we can put a bunch of points on the board and excite the fans. Coach Mumme throws the ball more than I thought he would. I threw it a lot in high school, but Coach Mumme’s offense throws it even more.”
On the Louisville rivalry:
“I like the game scheduled right out of the gate. It’s a great rivalry and good test to begin the season. Hopefully we can execute our offense, win the game, and gain momentum for the rest of the season.”
