Several media outlets are reporting that former UK wide receiver Randall Cobb has signed a four-year deal with the Green Bay Packers worth $3.2 million.

Kentucky has announced its annual fan day activities, which are scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 6 at Commonwealth Stadium. There will be an open practice with an autograph session followed by a fireworks show.

“It’s important for the fans to see what we do on a daily basis and understand how hard our players work on the practice field,” Coach Joker Phillips said. “Fan day is a great chance for our fans to meet our players and our staff and it is something we enjoy doing.”

There will be offensive, defensive and special teams drills beginning at 6 p.m. (gates open at 5). The open practice will run for about two hours and be followed by player introductions and an autograph session with players and coaches. Fireworks are set to go off at 9:30 p.m.

Defensive back Glenn Faulkner, one of Kentucky’s top recruits and the No. 1 recruit in Illinois according to one recruiting service, is “on his way,” Coach Joker Phillips confirmed at the Governor’s Cup luncheon on Thursday. Faulkner had been waiting for some paper work to be evaluated, but has been cleared and will be on campus when camp opens next month.

Just one day after getting the news that he was headed to the NFL to play for the Minnesota Vikings, former Kentucky running back Derrick Locke got word that he had failed his physical and was cut.

Locke reported the news on his Facebook page Wednesday afternoon, saying “FYI- the Vikings failed me on my physical. Its all the info I can give right now and I will update you as I hear something.”

Locke did not indicate what caused him to fail the physical, but he suffered several bad injuries during his time at Kentucky.

Kentucky Coach Joker Phillips has been at the ESPN studios all day with the network’s own version of Media Day with the Southeastern Conference coaches. Phillips has done several one-on-one interviews and most recently a live chat with fans. No real news out of the chat, but I did find his comments about the defensive players fitting into the new scheme interesting.

The question was about how the players are adjusting to defensive coordinator Rick Minter’s new scheme. Phillips’ answer: “They’ve taken ownership of it and done a great job this offseason of studying the defense. Watching film. Studying the playbook and taking pride in knowing it a lot better so we can be productive this season.”

Several former Kentucky standouts now have more permanent NFL homes on Tuesday on the first day for undrafted rookies to sign with teams after the lockout ended. Running back Derrick Locke announced on his personal Facebook page (via a picture of himself in a T-shirt) that he will be playing for the Vikings. UK announced via Twitter that wide receiver Chris Matthews is headed to the Cleveland Browns and defensive tackle Ricky Lumpkin will be an Arizona Cardinal.

Since the morning post, two more Cats have been reporter to have signed undrafted free agent contracts with teams.

• Mike Hartline will go to the Indianapolis Colts, leading Indy tight end and former UK star Jacob Tamme to tweet: “congrats, Mike. See u soon!”
• Defensive end DeQuin Evans will play for the Cincinnati Bengals.

The annual vote by the media at Southeastern Conference Media Days has a predictable finish for the Cats, who were picked fifth (just ahead of Vanderbilt) as usual.

As it did on the coaches’ pre-season team, Kentucky got three players on the All-SEC Teams. Offensive lineman Larry Warford was picked to the First Team as was linebacker Danny Trevathan. Punter Ryan Tydlacka was picked to the Third Team.

Here is the final tally (first place votes in parentheses):

EAST – South Carolina (114); Georgia (38); Florida (12); Tennessee (2); Kentucky (1); Vanderbilt

WEST – Alabama (111); LSU (30); Arkansas (23); Mississippi State (1); Auburn; Ole Miss (2)

Stuart Hines, Morgan Newton and Danny Trevathan were on hand at the Southeastern Conference Media Days on Thursday to discuss the upcoming season. Here are some highlights from their meetings with the media:

Stuart Hines, offensive guard

• “We’re really looked at as a strong point of the team this year and we’re trying to live up to those expectations. We want to be the group on the team that everyone relies on.”
• “We ended the season extremely disappointed and we’re eager to get abck out there this yar and prove that how we played in that bowl game is not us.”

Morgan Newton, quarterback

• On taking motivation from last year’s bowl loss: “We didn’t play as well as we wanted to play. Some good things happened — a lot of encouraging things — to segue into this year. The outcome wasn’t great, but we tried to take some things from that game and make sure we are ready to play this fall.”

Bright and early this morning in two separate interviews with the media, Kentucky Coach Joker Phillips addressed a wide variety of topics, from his relationship with former coach Rich Brooks to new defensive coordinator Rick Minter to what UK has to do to get over the proverbial SEC hump.

News

• Glenn Faulkner, a freshman safety out of East St. Louis and one of the top recruits in the class, is expected to be with the team this fall, but he is in an “evaulation state” and is finishing some work, Phillips said.
• Strong safety Dakotah Tyler is not enrolled for the fall semester and won’t be available this fall. He will take a leave of absence for a year, Phillips said.
• Phillips also said there are a couple of players who had some things to do this summer, but he expects them to be available come fall.

Here are some quick hit highlights:

• On hiring Rick Minter: “The thing that we wanted to achieve on defense was be more attacking, be more aggressive. If you look across this league, what’s winning is teams that are playing great defense. For us to take this thing to the next level, that’s being in the race as long as we possibly can, we have to play great defense. “
• On bouncing back from 6-7 last year: “We are doing a lot of things to elevate this program to the next level. We’ve been 8-5. We dropped to 6-7 this past year. The teams that are successful in this league are the teams that have discipline, teams that are physical, teams that are tough, have toughness. Those are the things that we’ve got to strive to get back to.”
• When asked about the addition of Steve Pardue, Phillips had an interesting take: “You look at our staff, there’s five Kentuckians on our staff, three ex-lettermen at our place. Might not be important at some other places, but I think it’s important for Kentucky football that there are guys that truly want to be there. I mentioned it last year. It’s juice, it’s passion for the job that you have.”
• On monitoring Twitter and other social media: “We tell our players that we only want you to put things on how you would interview if a camera is in front of you. Tell nothing about what’s happening under this roof here.”

Sorry for any issues with the blog yesterday. The wireless setup here is pretty miserable and it’s been impossible to post with much consistently … I don’t expect it to be much better today.

Kentucky Coach Joker Phillips is at the podium now fielding questions about new defensive coordinator Rick Minter and his relationship with Rich Brooks.

“We’re very, very close,” Phillips said when asked about UK trying to get over the “SEC hump,” adding that consistency will be the key this season.