Spring practice begins Wed. March 30 and concludes with the Blue/White Spring Game on Sat. April 23.
The Wildcats will practice on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from approximately 8:45 to 11:15 a.m.
On Saturdays, the team will practice from 1-4 p.m. on April 2; 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 9 and April 16 (scrimmages); and the Blue/White Game is slated for 1 p.m. on April 23.
Practices will be held at Commonwealth Stadium or the Nutter Field House. The Nutter Training Center practice fields are being renovated and will not be available during the spring.
Practices are open to the public and media.
Coach Rich Brooks held his pre-spring news conference on Monday. Here are some excerpts from the news conference:
Press Conference Quotes
Head Coach Rich Brooks
Opening Statement
?We?ve got some work going on with our practice fields and in the interim we will be practicing in the stadium or in the indoor (Nutter Field House) depending on weather conditions. Under the stadium we are getting a locker room where we can house our team during home games in one locker room. That will be ready by the fall. Those were two of the items that (UK Athletics Director) Mitch (Barnhart) and I had talked about when I first came here that were the only drawbacks as far as facilities were concerned. Although those are major expenses, they?re not as major as most programs have to do to bring their facilities up to top-notch level. These facilities were very good to start with. These new additions for the fall are going to make it outstanding. The practice area will be critical as well as being able to house the offense and defense in one locker room during home games. ?The other change is we are going to be practicing in the mornings. We have been struggling since I have been here with (class) conflicts with afternoon practice times. Most of the conflicts have come late in the day where players have had to miss meetings due to class conflicts. We are going to experiment this spring to try and minimize those conflicts. We?ve had far fewer conflicts with morning practices, freeing players up for afternoon and evening classes. Plus, the players really will only have to make one trip a day to the Nutter Center, where their weightlifting is built around their practice times. They won?t have to lift weights early in the morning and come back in the afternoon for practice. We are currently registering for next fall and we are going to do it in the fall as well. We are going to be far better served to do it in the fall as well.?
On spring roster changes?
?Chad Anderson had been suspended indefinitely, also joining him are Lonnell Dewalt, Gabe Wallace and Tony Dixon. Each player knows what he has to do to be reinstated, and at this point they haven?t been involved in weightlifting or off-season conditioning, so that they can take care of business academically.
?One other player came into my office Monday morning and decided he wanted to go some place closer to home after finishing the semester?that?s Kane Hannaford. He will not be with us this spring. ?We do have a few players who are injured that will participate, but not on contact. Arliss Beach is still recovering quite well (from ankle and shoulder injuries). He ran a 4.51 or 4.52 (in a 40-yard dash). The shoulder that we discovered after we scoped it was worse than we had initially thought. He did have a labrum tear that had to be repaired. He?s back lifting fully, but that needs to settle down still. Draak Davis pulled a quad in off-season conditioning and he will be limited. Wesley Woodyard had a screw removed from his surgically repaired ankle. He will participate in everything but contact.?
On the off-season workouts?
?I think that things have gone well in the off-season. I think that the players have worked extremely hard. I think we have players that understand what is expected of them on a larger scale than they did a year ago. We have had some significant progress in the off-season program. We have had some guys improve in strength and training. Rafael Little can jump 42 inches. I have never been around anybody who can jump 42 inches.
?I?m just looking forward to getting back on the practice field. We will be a little thin on the offensive line and probably at the linebacker position, but we have five new players that enrolled this January and two of them are linebackers. Johnny Williams who ran a 4.61 (in the 40-yard dash) and Mikhail Mabry who ran 4.85. Trevard Lindley, a corner who had knee surgery that he hurt in basketball last season, has been cleared for full contact and he?s really improved each week on strength levels and speed. Myron Pryor is a defensive lineman, who had torn a pec (pectoral muscle) last spring and had to have it surgically repaired. Fatu Turituri is off to a great start in school as well as on the football team. He is an offensive guard out of Harbor Junior College. It?s the first of my knowledge that a Samoan has played football at UK. He?ll be joined by two others next fall.?
On the coaching staff?
?Obviously, you have four new coaches. Rick Petri was the last hire and he coached the defensive line the last six years with David Cutcliffe. He also coached as Ole Miss before, at South Carolina and at Miami with Dennis Erickson. He had some All-Americans, Warren Sapp, Kenard Lang and people like that. I?ve been very impressed with all of the new coaches in the meetings that we?ve had to get ready for spring practice.?
Asked to comment on the team?s roster size?
?I think that we will be higher than we have since I?ve been here as far as scholarship players. I had added four players to scholarship last year, Karl Booker, Trai Williams, Andrew Hopewell and Jason Dickerson. All of those participated and played well for us last year?Hopewell and Dickerson on special teams. Trai Williams is going in as the starting guard in spring practice. Booker is going in as the starting corner. All four of those players contributed and earned those scholarships.
?It is possible that we may have a few more next fall, one of whom will be (center) Matt McCutchan, because he started all 11 games last fall. We are hopeful with he and (tackle) Ernie Pelayo, they go into the year as seniors, but we will appeal to see if we can get a year of eligibility back because of injury situations in the past.
?With the 20 players we are able to bring in in the fall, we will have 77 or 78. I would expect us with two or three players who are walk-ons that could earn scholarships. So we should have 82 or 83 scholarships. A lot of the players will still be inexperienced, but we got some great play out of inexperienced players last season, such as Rafael Little and Tony Dixon. I think you?ll also see some of this incoming freshman class contribute in some positive way as they did last year.?
Asked whether the team would be thin at the running back position in the spring?
?Just a little bit. We?ve got Arliss Beach, and we think Draak Davis will be cleared after about maybe 10 days of spring practice. Alexis Bwenge can be a fullback/tailback kind of guy. Terrell Bankhead has made some tremendous improvements in his numbers from last season?he?s a junior college guy. He?s a good, solid player. Opposite, you?ve got Rafael Little, who frankly can use all the work he can get. He missed virtually all of fall camp and a few games early in the season because of the knee surgery he had last summer. Obviously, he?s responded very well with a 42-inch vertical.?
Asked about the adjustments made on offense and defense?
?Defensively, the biggest adjustment will be that primarily we will be a 4-3 defense. We played some of that last year. That will be the starting point this year. We?ll still do many of the same things. It will include dropping a lineman sometimes in a zone blitzing situation rather than an inside or outside linebacker, but some of those defensive ends were outside linebackers last year, like Durrell White. If we get in a problem at linebacker, he can always go back and play linebacker because he was a very solid player for us, obviously, the last two years.
?Offensively, I think the biggest thing that you may think will be different is that there will be less option. There still will be some option, but we feel going in that we have a guy (Andre? Woodson) that can throw the football pretty well. We have some people who can stretch the field?some game breakers?at receiver. I feel good, also about our running backs. Moving Jacob Tamme into the competition at tight end gives us more receiving threats at that position, and should push (Eric) Scott and (Jeremiah) Drobney to be even a bigger factor as well, if they want to continue to play as much as they have. The passing game, hopefully, will become a little bit more prominent, as far as completion percentage and moving the chains. The encouraging thing on the passing end from Andre? was that he threw (only) one interception. The thing he needs to work on is ball security in the pocket and when he scrambles. I?m sure Coach (Kurt) Roper will be working very hard on that this spring.?
Asked about changing to a 4-3 hurting the team?s ability to disguise defenses?
?There is some truth to that, but you can disguise things as to who?s coming on the pass rush. It (playing a 3-4) helps you in the pass rush game a little bit, because sometimes they?ll break down a little bit and not know where the fourth rusher is coming from. With four down linemen, obviously it?s a little easier to pick where the four are coming from. When you mix zone with that and rush five, only two (linebackers) are back, it creates some of the same problems. We?ll rob Peter to pay Paul a little bit, but the other side of it is that we should be more stout against the run. One of our problems came in stopping opponents? running games. We didn?t have correct fits with our linebackers inside and outside, and sometimes linemen didn?t stay in the gaps. We didn?t have the type of a defensive end that could play a two-gap technique with the head up on the tackle. Now with a guy like B.J. Parsons, who is a similar high energy player, only taller, he?s quick and can run, and plays snap to whistle. He?s going to be a lot better as a four-down line defensive end than a three-down line defensive end. He?ll be an edge player and more productive in that scheme.?
Asked about the learning curve of switching a defensive?
?For the defensive linemen, it will be easier from a responsibility and technique standpoint. There will be a little bit of a learning curve for the linebackers. For a guy on the line, it?s not any different than in a 3-4. It also makes it more imperative that you do a good job of disguising coverage on the back end. The safeties become important in this defense.?
Asked about what he is looking for out of quarterback Andre Woodson?
?I am looking for him to be a take-charge leader, a guy that eliminates bad plays and continues to make good ones.?
Asked about the importance of Joe Joe Brown pushing Woodson to be a better player?
?I believe that it will (maximize his potential) to a certain extent. It?s extremely important because you?re one play away from Joe Joe Brown maybe being the starter. You never know what can happen with an injury. What we hope can happen is to develop some continuity. What you need is a pattern where you don?t drop from a senior to a freshman (as happened last year with Shane Boyd and Woodson). Numbers caused a lot of that on probation. That?s not the only position, but it?s a very visible one. You would much rather go in with a senior or a junior than a redshirt freshman. As we go through this process with Andre? Woodson, Joe Joe Brown and Curtis Pulley, I think we have three viable athletes who have some ability to play in this league. Now, it?s just a matter of continuing their development to the level that they need to be winners in this league.?
Asked about the status of Curtis Pulley?
?You always evaluate the freshmen coming in. It?s my assumption that Andre? Woodson is clearly the guy going into this spring. Coming out of the spring, I would expect that he would be the guy, but I can?t tell you that he will be. We?ll wait and see how it unfolds after 15 practices. Whoever goes into the fall as No. 1, it?s his job to keep if he can hold off the challenge of Joe Joe Brown improving over the summer or Curtis Pulley coming in and lighting it up. We are in a position where we can take a good look at Curtis Pulley, because we only have two other scholarship quarterbacks. Pulley will get a good, hard look this summer and show what he can do.?
Asked how he thinks the program will improve?
?I believe that we are going to be a team that is blessed with a little bit more speed and strength than we have been. Certainly, more depth than we have had from a scholarship standpoint. We have some players in skill positions and at receiver, some older ones and younger ones, more than one or two. The same thing with running back. The quarterback position?although I think it?s limited in experience, we have ability. We just need to go out and prove it. Hope springs eternal in all football fans. Fans are hopeful, now it?s our job to bring that hope to fruition. We need to show that we can finish a close game and hold on when we get ahead of a Florida or a Tennessee.?
Asked what the team hopes to accomplish in the spring?
?We want to identify leaders. We want to see execution in all phases. It?s critical that we develop some of the younger, less experienced players to where they will have confidence when they step onto the field to be able to function well within the scheme of what we?re doing.?
Asked about the return of Tommy Cook?
?I think it?s huge to have a guy like Tommy Cook. Leadership is really interesting to me. A lot of people assume that since a guy?s a senior that he automatically is a leader. That is not always the case. Leaders, first of all, are very accountable. They don?t screw things up off the field or on the field. If they?re good leaders, they?re leading to the classroom, leading to the CATS center, leading in practice, and because they do that all the time, they usually lead in games by performance. Then to have a leader who?s not afraid to turn around to one of his teammates and say ?stop complaining and start working.? That?s really important and Tommy Cook is one of those guys. Nobody works harder than Tommy. To have him back is really critical. Tommy?s gone through a lot. I think he would like to see his last year be a great year from a team standpoint. He?s a team guy. I think that having a guy like him back is very important.?
Asked about the return of Keenan Burton?
?Keenan probably won?t have contact either. We don?t want him to take a shot and set that healing back (in his wrist). It will continue to heal. We may have him, at the end of spring, in some contact. You may see Wesley Woodyard and Keenan Burton with red jerseys on. We don?t want to get them banged around, but we do want to have them in practice. I think it?s really important to have a guy with the potential of Keenan Burton back.?
