Sept. 29, 2012

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Kentucky Head Coach Joker Phillips

COACH PHILLIPS: Max Smith, get him back, lose him to an ankle. Dakotah Tyler, a knee, we’ll be able to is look at it better tomorrow. Zach West shoulder, Ray-Ray (Raymond) Sanders has a knee. Those things we’ll take a look at, get X-rays and MRIs tomorrow, then be able to take a closer look at them.

We made plays early in the game. We’ve been trying to get started a little faster by changing the way we practice a little bit and getting right into some 11 on 11 stuff right away, and it showed a little bit. Now we’ve got to do a better job of finishing.

We didn’t finish the end of the first half very well offensively. Then we didn’t finish in the second half. So those guys, I thought the defense played well in the first half, and gave up 20-something yards rushing, which, against that team we just played, as athletic as their quarterback is and as big and physical as their tailback is, a pretty good job.

The second half they were a little more patient South Carolina was. Stuck with the running game a little bit longer, and was able to rush to get 200 yards rushing on us which we couldn’t get them stopped and get ourselves off the field defensively.

We just couldn’t get anything going on offense in the second half to try to match the scores that they made. I think their first three possessions they scored touchdowns, and we couldn’t match it. Questions.

Q. Jalen Whitlow looked like he tweaked his ankle.

COACH PHILLIPS: Looked like he did, but he didn’t go to the trainer, so the trainers didn’t come to me with anything.

Q. Max’s ankle, he went in the back for a while. Did he get X-rays?

COACH PHILLIPS: He did get X-rays. X-rays are negative, but we’ll take another look at it tomorrow.

Q. Question regarding South Carolina’s size wearing UK down in the second half?

COACH PHILLIPS: We were a little bit more patient with the run game. Our defense had to play — one of the things that we talked about before the game was our goal line, and talk to our all three phases of our guys that are in charge. One of the things — the time of possession. You’re seeing how the time of possession has been — our opponents have had a huge time of possession.

One of the things that we’ve talked about defensive is our defense has to get themselves off the field on third down. You’ve got to play really good in goal line defense. In the first half, what do we do? We have a goal line stop. We played really good on third down to get ourselves off the field. Therefore those guys don’t have the ball as much, and we control the time of possession in the first half. Second half we didn’t do that. We didn’t get stops on third down, and we didn’t get stops on the goal line.

When they get that many possessions, it becomes — we do have to wear down a little bit. We just didn’t get ourselves off the field.

Q. It looked like a percentage of the playbook was limited for Jalen. But was that the case after halftime that they made adjustments to those plays?

COACH PHILLIPS: You know, I know at halftime coming off I talked to Dick (Gabriel), and Dick was talking about the playbook with them and how well he was doing. He was doing well. He was. He made some plays. But the same motions and shifts that we do became really hard for him. He missed a few of them. Some of the pressure that he got was because he didn’t send a motion or didn’t send shifts.

But, again, he’s a guy who is a talented guy. A guy who we always say a freshman, he’s going to make some plays, but they’re going to make some mistakes also. They made a few plays in the first half, but made some mistakes that got you away from some of the things because you’ve got to send all the shifts and motions that we want.

Q. Did you feel like at the end of the first half you have the ball, you could punch it in there. It’s a 24-7 game going into the half.

COACH PHILLIPS: We did. We missed a huge opportunity. You’ve got to get some points. You know, we had our field goal team ready to run out on the field. We didn’t anticipate fumbling the ball, and now it’s just going for the ball, and we pick it up, and now it’s only two or three seconds left instead of 10 to 12. So we missed a huge opportunity to get points.

I think that was a momentum swing. It was. It was a huge momentum swing. We got the ball back in the second half. I think it would have definitely helped if we got some points out of that.

Q. Talk about the second down there where you ended up calling the timeout?

COACH PHILLIPS: Again, just really methodical and getting the play calls. You know, I mean it’s just like really slow. This guy didn’t hear it. And things that can’t happen, happened. Things that can’t happen, happened on second down, and you use up a timeout.

Once the clock is moving and now you’re losing even more time. So you can’t get the clock all the way down. If I had known that, I would have called timeout at 35 seconds on the play clock. So those are the things that happened on that second down should not happen and can’t happen.

Q. Talk about in the first half and how you guys played …

COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, exactly. We played with great effort. Our guys played with great effort. I tell you, I think they have all year. We’ve played with enthusiasm. The thing we did was play with total focus. That is the thing that this football team is young. There were a lot of babies out there making plays for us again. But there were a lot of mistakes made out there also when you have a lot of young players out there playing for you.

Q. Can you talk about Marcus Lattimore being such a big back?

COACH PHILLIPS: You know, that’s the same question I just answered. A little bit, yeah, but this is SEC ball. You’ve got to go out and get stops.

Q. Talk about playing in the first half with such a young team. How concerned were you at halftime?

COACH PHILLIPS: Wasn’t concerned about that. I wanted to come out with enthusiasm. I didn’t even want to try to bring them down. I wanted to keep them up. The thing we talked about is 30 more minutes of the same, total concentration, total focus that we needed in the second half.

Q. What was encouraging for you about Jalen?

COACH PHILLIPS: Encouraging is that Jalen made some big time throws for us. Again, he has a chance to extend plays with his feet. He made a few plays for us in the quarterback run game, and he also made a few plays by pulling the ball down and making them play with his feet. So that was encouraging for him.

He looked like he had been there. Again, he didn’t have the bright eyes that you see in some guys. Last year when we said, Max, you might be up. Max was in his locker, looking at the playbook. You know, this guy just went out there and played. Again, made a few plays, but, again, we’ve got to continue to get him better so he can have even more of the playbook the next time he’s able to play.

Q. The freshman made a lot of plays, especially Daron Blaylock blocking the punt?

COACH PHILLIPS: He blocked the punt. He said he blocked it. A lot of young guys out there making plays. I’ve been saying that I think that (A.J.) Legree was a guy that I said we have to get the ball in his hands because he plays so fast for us. He hadn’t caught a pass up until last week. But you could still see it, how fast the guy plays when he’s on the field. He’s a really tough guy. He’s a really physical wide receiver. He’s a guy that on the posts, that was as good a throw and as good a catch with the guy hanging as I’ve ever seen.

Those are true freshmen. I’m talking true freshmen. One playing at Prattville (High School in Alabama) last year, and the other one playing at Fort White (High School in Florida), playing against one of the top defenses in the country. So I think it was really encouraging to see those young guys making plays for us.

Q. Are there things you can do to tweak this offense to take advantage of Jalen?

COACH PHILLIPS: Might have put more quarterback run game in. We’ve put a little in. We may have to add a little more in for him because he can make plays with his feet. He’s not a great wildcat kind of guy, because most of the wildcat runs are downhill, physical runs. You don’t want to get your quarterback into that type of all the time into those type of runs. But there are some other things that we’ll have to do with them.

Q. Can you talk about one of the plays where Jalen looked to be sacked but got out of it and made some yards …

COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, he’s got the ability. That’s the reason we decided that. He can extend plays for us and has the ability to escape in the pocket. We saw it on that play.

Q. You didn’t see much of Raymond Sanders or Jonathan George in the second half, only had three or four carries for 21 in the second half. Why was that?

COACH PHILLIPS: Yeah, we weren’t on the field a lot. We just didn’t get enough plays. I think the first series we made a first down and went three-and-out right after that first down. We just didn’t get enough plays to get a chance to run the football.

Q. Joker, Max’s ankle, if it is serious enough would you have to burn Patrick Towles redshirt?

COACH PHILLIPS: Might, you know. But, again, we won’t do that unless Max is out for a while. Also, we won’t do it unless we’re going to play him. At this point in time, there is no sense in taking it off of him if he’s not going to play a significant amount.

Q. What was the key to their defense being more effective in the second half after you were able to really establish the run?

COACH PHILLIPS: Just the pressure they put on us with the front four in the passing game. Again, we got ourselves into some long down situations that we weren’t able to continue to establish the run the way we did in the first half.

Q. What do you want them to take from this game? Do you want them to be more upset about losing?

COACH PHILLIPS: I want them to think that we’ve got to play 60 minutes. When you’re young as a football team as ours and you’re playing against the number 6 team in the country, you have to play clean, fast, with great effort, which I thought we did. But you’ve got to do it for 60 minutes. We did it for 35 minutes then they took over and took the momentum. We never got it back.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports

Kentucky Players

#1, Martavius Neloms, CB

On if it is tougher to bounce back after another lost like this…

“Yeah, it is tough. We showed the type of team that we could be. We just have to finish (games) now.”

On freshman play so far …
“It is always good when your freshman can come in a make plays. It does not matter if you are a senior or a freshman, you still have to be ready to play.”

On overall defensive performance …
“We were able to stop them in the first half. We pushed them around, and we just need to carry that to the second half.”

#4,
Raymond Sanders III, TB

On what it was like when Jalen (Whitlow) came into the huddle …
“He practiced all week, and he felt confident. The guys pushed him and we let him know that we were going to rally behind him. We wanted him to come out and give it his all. We think he did that.”

On running game …
“We just come out and try to pound it. The offensive line is doing a great job getting their man and holding those blocks. We always can improve and we are trying to get better.”

On putting a full game together …
“We see what kind of team we can be in the first half. We were making plays, and we just need to put a full game together. We are going to come back tomorrow, work to put a full game together, staying focused, and pushing to be the best we can be. We feel like we can be a pretty good team.”

# 16, Cody Quinn, DB

On his thoughts on the game …

“Well we came out with enthusiasm. We played well in the first half. We just have to keep it up in the second half because it’s a 60 – minute game. We can’t play for 30 minutes. Look forward to next week. Just have to keep fighting.”

On his feelings in the second half …

“It kind of felt like it was shifting away. Defensively, we made a few mistakes. We just have to pick it up and keep fighting. It’s a 60-minute game and we can’t just let up. We’ve been known to do that in previous games.”

On South Carolina’s Marcus Lattimore …

“He’s a great player. I watched him back in high school. I’ve known him for a while. I feel like we could’ve stopped him. ”

#6, A.J Legree, WR

On his thoughts on the game …

“I feel that we didn’t play with the fire and energy that we had the first half. I think we just let it go.”

On his performance …

“I played okay, but there’s always room for improvement. You can always get better. That’s what I believe in, getting better.”

#13, Jalen Whitlow, QB

On how he played during the game  …

“I always got to be ready, first half I think I played alright. Second half we lost some focus and intensity, we just got to put it all together ”

On the second half play  …

“I was holding on to the ball too much, we got some sacks, and interceptions. We just got to stay focused and keep the intensity high”

On breaking out of his comfort zone

“It was difficult because, they were coming, the were putting on pressure, I was holding on to the ball too much, just got to stay focused”

Adjustments for the half …

“We made a few adjustments, a few minor things, nothing crazy but they stopped us, I just got to get the ball out of my hands quicker”

#94, Taylor Wyndham, DE

On the idea of a moral victory …

“Its tough, the record doesn’t fare well, when you have a young team with guys progressing, its exciting to see what we can do and we are making progress. It takes time.”

On the first half dominance …
“When we came out we had a good game plan, we executed it we just got after it, that’s how it was”

On the difference between the first half and second half …
“The first half we got after it, and we laid off a little bit in the second half and they changed things up on us. We didn’t adjust as well as we should’ve, and they just ran it down on us.”

South Carolina Head Coach Steve Spurrier

Opening statement …

“We played a little bit better in the second half than we did in the first half, sort of a turnaround from two years ago when we were up 18 and got beat here. Coming in at halftime I told somebody, we don’t have to worry about being overconfident going into the second half or getting full of ourselves like maybe two years ago. Really proud of our guys, 17-7 was not a huge lead for them. I’m sort of glad they didn’t get that one right at the end of the first half, 24-7 would make you think you’d have to throw the whole time. 17-7, we had a better plan, get in the I-Formation, give it to (Marcus) Lattimore and let him run. Maybe we learned something today, the old I-Formation, the old power play, this that and the other sweeps are not bad. We don’t have to run zone reads and all that shotgun stuff all the time and that was very helpful for us. The line blocked pretty well in the second half and of course Marcus made a bunch of runs. Good throw to Damiere Byrd, get the quick touchdown to start the half and make it 17-14 so we were right there. Again, two different halves, our guys really played the second half. We couldn’t even cover kicks or punts in the first half, they almost ran off and left us in the first half. Two weeks in a row we can’t score on the one yard line, fortunately it didn’t cost, we got a victory and we move on to the next game.”

On going to Marcus Lattimore in the second half …
“Nothing else was working very well and we were getting sacked all over the place so it was time to try to give it to him and give it to him. We still hit a few balls here and there, we still threw a few. I don’t know what we’ll do next week but we’ll probably do a little bit of both. Shotgun, I-Formation, whatever is working.”

On Connor Shaw …

“Connor is a good tough kid, he got hit a couple times in the pocket there, especially that last one. He sort of had a corner route called and the DB overplayed it and I wish he would have just thrown it away, he took a hard hit on that one. Other than that he played well, he had some nice runs up in there. He’s really a good passer, I wish D.L. (Moore) could have held on to that first one, about the same play that Damiere caught there. Anyway, it was a good win for us, our defense was very good the second half, not very good the first half. Special teams, very good the second half, not very good the first half. Anyway, we are fortunate to get a come-from-behind win and move on to the rest of the season.”

On coming out in the second half…

“I think I’ve talked about that, our guys really had a good look in their eyes that they wanted to play the second half. There wasn’t any mopping, nobody was pouting, nobody was pointing fingers. We were all bad so there weren’t any fingers to point except all at ourselves. We had a better plan the second half, it worked out.”

South Carolina Players

#98 Devin Taylor, DE

On adjustments and halftime …

“I think the first half we just came out sluggish. They didn’t do anything that we haven’t practiced.”

On adjustments and halftime …

“Our leaders stated that we control our destiny for the second half, and we just need to go and play our game everything else will come.”

On being discouraged in 2nd half …

“Coming out in the second half we knew that we didn’t have a good first half, so our whole plan was to come with the intensity that we didn’t show.”

On overlooking Kentucky …

“I don’t think that anyone really overlooked them. We play every game one game at a time. We don’t look forward ahead to next week’s game. We didn’t come out fully prepared for Kentucky and they shocked us. We were able to bounce back from that.”

On expecting them to run the way they did …

“All week our coaches have been emphasizing, even though they lost to Florida, they run the ball very well and the main thing that we have to do is stop the run.”

#3 Damier Byrd, Wide Receiver

On looking over and seeing Marcus Lattimore running …

Yes it was good to see that, Marcus is one of our leaders, and obviously he can run the ball. Once we get him running the ball that opens up our offense a lot.”

On why they struggled in the opening half and what Kentucky did …

“They were just out there playing the hard. They played a great first half. I definitely give them that. We missed opportunities and we were able to capitalize and come back on the second half.”

On leadership from Connor (Shaw) coming back from first half …

“Connor was very steady the entire game, even in the first half, he was okay. Connor definitely stepped up and Marcus stepped up and everybody else did also.”

Connor Shaw #14

On the South Carolina receivers’ ability to perform in the first half…

I think maybe it was a combination.  I sat back too long and maybe receivers not getting open.  I think we did a great job of coming in and making halftime adjustments and playing hard.

On second half adjustments…
We knew what we had to do to win.  We just needed to get back to our bread and butter.  We had to get Marcus involved, and that’s what we did in the second half.

On playing Georgia next week…
We can’t start off slow like we did today against a team like Georgia.

Shaq Wilson #54

On the what changed the game in the second half…
We came out with fire. We just had to tackle more.  We were more focused. 

On the last play of the first half…

It was really important.  We had to get a big stop right before the half so that they could not put more points on the board.

Akeem Auguste #3

On facing the Kentucky offense…

We came out talking about a shutout and they put up 17 points, and that the most anybody put up against us the whole year.

On being able to start playing again…

It’s just a blessing.  I’m just glad I was able to help my team win.

On the difference between the first half and the second half…

Adrenaline.  When the adrenaline stopped pumping for them it started for us.  When we play football not too many people can beat us.