A losing season, Kentucky’s first in five years, was not enough to put a damper on Kentucky football head coach Joker Phillips’ outlook on the program following his first year as head coach.”We had some good accomplishments in the 2010 season,” Phillips said in a briefing with the media before Tuesday’s basketball game against Auburn. “We won some big games that led to another bowl game. Obviously the season did not end like we would have liked and everybody else would have liked, but I feel good about the program.”Kentucky is fresh off a disappointing 27-10 loss to Pittsburgh in the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham, Ala.With the 2010 season closed and the offseason now in full gear, the two lingering questions for the Cats as they look ahead to 2011 revolve around Randall Cobb and Danny Trevathan and whether or not they will declare for the NFL Draft.Phillips said he doesn’t have a gut feeling on what either player will do but remained confident on what UK will return with or without those players.Among the strengths Phillips mentioned for next year’s team, he noted four starters returning on the offensive line, quality redshirt players, wide receiver La’Rod King, a full arsenal of tight ends, tailback Raymond Sanders and the majority of UK’s top tacklers.Still, if Cobb decides to turn pro, UK will be without several offensive stars from 2010, including departing seniors Mike Hartline, Derrick Locke and Chris Matthews. Defensively, Phillips will have to replace defensive tackle Ricky Lumpkin, defensive end DeQuin Evans and possibly Trevathan.Phillips likened the losses to the 2008 season when UK lost the likes of program-changers Andre Woodson, Keenan Burton, Jacob Tamme and Wesley Woodyard. The Cats still won seven games, including the Liberty Bowl. “We’re not that far away,” Phillips said. “The way the ball bounced this year, we were a couple of bounces from winning eight games. We were also a couple of bounces from winning four, too.”Phillips noted that he was not happy with winning six games, adding that there is nobody in or around the program that wants to go to more bowl games and win championships than he does. The key in getting more victories and taking the next step, Phillips said, is consistency.”We’ve got to be more consistent in being a hard-nose program, being consistent in our discipline and we’ve also got to be consistent in being a physical football team,” Phillips said.Talent wise, Phillips is confident Kentucky will return plenty next year. Asked if he was worried about the recruiting aftereffects of losing a bowl game heading into the offseason, Phillips said no. He pointed to last year’s signing class, one of the best in school history, which came after the loss to Clemson in the Music City Bowl.No more staff changes are expected in the offseason, Phillips said, including co-defensive coordinator Steve Brown. But who will play quarterback next year is anybody’s guess.Junior-to-be Morgan Newton, who won five games as a freshman and started this year’s bowl game in place of the suspended Hartline, is thought to be the early favorite for the job because of experience, but Phillips said it will be a wide-open, three-way battle between Newton, sophomore-to-be Ryan Mossakowski and grayshirt freshman Maxwell Smith.Phillips said both Newton and Mossakowski are farther along in their development at this point in their careers than Woodson and Hartline were.”If you look across the country and even in the league, the difference between winning and losing games is the quarterback position,” Phillips said.

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