Having a defense that heavily emphasizes forcing turnovers can be somewhat of a double-edged sword on practice days. Those days when the offense takes care of the football, the defense needs to force turnovers. When the defense  does what it sets out to do and takes the ball away, the offense needs to do a better job being strong with the ball. 

That was Joker Phillips’ dilemma on Tuesday. Rick Minter’s defense had multiple takeaways, particularly in short yardage situations, and Phillips was pleased with that, but he can’t accept those kinds of mistakes from his offense. “We had too many turnovers,” Phillips said. “We turned the ball over too many times offensively, but the good thing is that, defensively, we did a good job of taking it away.”

Yet again, Phillips was pleased with the effort and speed that his team played with, but harped on cutting out mistakes like turnovers and pre-snap penalties, calling them “infectious”. Even though many of the mistakes are being made by younger players trying to make plays, Phillips said that those errors cannot become habits.

Before returning to meetings this evening, the team will head poolside to “break up the monotony” of fall camp in the words of Phillips. Check out the video below Phillips’ thoughts on the merits of back flips vs. front flips off of the diving board as well as all of his comments after practice on Tuesday morning.

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