Leading up to Kentucky’s season-opener against Western Kentucky in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 1, Cat Scratches presents an exclusive series of positional previews to prepare you for the football season. Every day before kickoff, Metz Camfield and Guy Ramsey will bring you Joker Phillips’ philosophy for each positional group, a spotlight feature on a selected member of the group and rundown of other projected contributors. Today we will be taking a look at the Wildcats’ defensive backfield.Joker Phillips’ philosophy“One corner in the boundary has to be more of a cover guy. In the past, our cover guy we usually put to the field. Now what we do is put our cover guy to the boundary. Usually the (bigger corner) goes to the boundary and is really setting the edge and coming up in support, but we try to put our support people to the field and put our cover guy to the boundary.”Spotlight: Burden’s role slightly changed in third year as starterHeading into his senior year, Randall Burden didn’t figure he would come across much that he hadn’t seen before.

With 26 consecutive starts under his belt, Burden had lined up across all the top receivers in the SEC. He had played in some of the nations’ most famous venues. He had won some big games and he had lost some big games. He expected to come into his third year as a starter prepared for whatever was in front of him.Enter new co-defensive coordinator Rick Minter and his new scheme. Burden would again be starting at corner, but all of a sudden he was told he would be playing a position that is called a “boundary corner”.”Now, it’s something new with Coach Minter,” Burden said. “We have a boundary corner and field corner. I’ll be playing the boundary corner so that’s something new instead of just having a left and right corner.”When initially hearing of his new role, he admittedly did not know what he was in for.”I didn’t really know what it was at first,” Burden said.He wasn’t in the dark for long. Essentially, Burden’s new role will be covering the wide receiver on the short side of the field. The responsibilities of the boundary corner vary slightly in different defensive schemes, but in Minter’s the boundary corner is called on to play one-on-one coverage regularly. Additionally, Burden will need to be able to be effective in playing the run.”A lot of the boundary corner stuff is that the guy has to be able to play the run in certain situations, but he also has to be a really good cover guy,” co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Steve Brown said. “Both he and Anthony Mosley could do that, but we chose to put Randall out there. Most of our guys can play the position because you have to be able to cover as corner period, but we really lean on the boundary corner to be a good cover guy.”Now that Burden knows what’s expected of him, he’s come to love the new defense. With decreased responsibilities close to the line of scrimmage, Burden said that he expects the secondary to force significantly more turnovers.”What I like most about it is the emphasis it puts on turnovers,” Burden said. “That’s really the big thing that I like most about it. The way that the corners and the secondary plays, we don’t really play too much down in the box with the linebackers. We stay deep and we’ll be able to create more turnovers on balls thrown in the air.”Even though the defense is new as well as Burden’s role in it, that doesn’t mean the experience he has accrued over the past few seasons should be disregarded. “It’s pretty valuable because I’ve played just about every SEC receiver,” Burden said. “I know what to expect. Going against Florida, they’ve got the speed. Going against South Carolina, they have the size. You have to put them together and work on it in practice and hopefully you’ll be ready in the game.”Brown said that experience is especially valuable at the cornerback position. It doesn’t matter how much tape you watch on South Carolina’s Alshon Jeffery; you’re not going to understand his combination of speed and strength until you step on the field with him.”When you have familiarity with an opponent, you know how fast he moves and how he does certain things,” Brown said. “You’re able to get in the flow of playing him a lot sooner as opposed to someone that you’ve seen for the first time and you don’t know much about him. It’s hard to get that off of film as opposed to getting that practical experience.”Other contributorsSenior cornerback Anthony Mosley – Mosley will playing opposite Burden as a starting corner and is expected to be a very solid performer. He has emerged as a leader during this offseason after coming from relative obscurity to start 12 games in 2010. Junior safety Martavius Neloms – Neloms has been talked about a great deal during fall camp for his transition from corner to safety. The change has gone smoothly for the Memphis, Tenn., native and Minter will be looking for some big plays out of him at the safety spot.Senior safety Mychal Bailey – Bailey came to UK last season as a junior college transfer with a reputation for big plays and bigger hits. He played most of last season at safety, but did not make as big of an impact as expected. Many junior college transfers don’t realize their potential until their senior years, so keep an eye out for a breakout from Bailey.Junior cornerback Cartier Rice – Rice played in 11 games last year primarily in nickel and dime coverages. He figures to do the same this season and could play significantly more after Mosley and Burden depart at the end of this season.Redshirt freshman safety Miles Simpson – Simpson redshirted last year as a running back, but was converted to safety during the season. Like Winston Guy, he has played primarily in a hybrid safety/linebacker role during camp and could make an impact with his combination of size and speed.Freshman cornerback Dale Trimble – Trimble also redshirted last season. He was named Scout Team Player of the Week four times last year and developed a reputation for being very strong in coverage.Freshman safety Glenn Faulkner – Faulkner was the most highly-touted recruit in UK’s 2011 class as a four star safety. Many expect him to make an instant impact, but his late arrival on campus and the time he has missed in camp due to a death in the family have slowed his development. Keep an eye out for him late in the season.LinksMosley leading secondary the ‘Kentucky way‘ (Eric Lindsey, Cat Scratches) DB’s are ‘going all out‘ (Kyle Tucker, Louisville Courier-Journal)