News, notes and quotes from Phillips

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.”