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Joker Phillips for WR Coach Vacancy?

Apr 14, 2020
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Random thought, Joker Phillips is currently the WRs coach at NC State. Any chance he would be interested in coming back to Kentucky? He was obviously a failure at head coach but we had some great WRs under his time (Keenan Burton, Dicky Lyons, Steve Johnson) come to mind. Not sure if he has a grudge but it would be an interesting hire. Thoughts?
 
Random thought, Joker Phillips is currently the WRs coach at NC State. Any chance he would be interested in coming back to Kentucky? He was obviously a failure at head coach but we had some great WRs under his time (Keenan Burton, Dicky Lyons, Steve Johnson) come to mind. Not sure if he has a grudge but it would be an interesting hire. Thoughts?
Even he realizes Stoops is a dead man walking.
 
Random thought, Joker Phillips is currently the WRs coach at NC State. Any chance he would be interested in coming back to Kentucky? He was obviously a failure at head coach but we had some great WRs under his time (Keenan Burton, Dicky Lyons, Steve Johnson) come to mind. Not sure if he has a grudge but it would be an interesting hire. Thoughts?
Discover No Way GIF by ADWEEK
 
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Joker is AHC as well at NC St...I think.

I would hold up on making staff decision right now. If Ohio State get beat early round, Day might get the boot.

If that's the case I would make a run at a Day, Kelly, and/or Hartline to come here. Blank check, all in for one of them to come here for year or two until they get a gig somewhere else or brass n boosters decide to throw CMS an early retirement party and put a statue of him. Then one of those guys takes over.

Hartline most realistic obviously. The other two will have offers for all sorts of gigs. Hartline looking to rise up the ranks. Tell him he can bring brother Mike back to Lex.
 
Hell, why not bring back Fran Curci? He's still alive. He knows how to beat UT. Also, he's a sharp dresser.
 
Not mad at all! Just joking around and lamenting our shared pain re: wideout coaches lol. You're all good, Grump.

Very cool, sometimes the way mean things to be taken gets taken in a different way on this thing called the internet.. For the record our WR coach uses as much hair dye as Ryan Day does beard dye
 
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Random thought, Joker Phillips is currently the WRs coach at NC State. Any chance he would be interested in coming back to Kentucky? He was obviously a failure at head coach but we had some great WRs under his time (Keenan Burton, Dicky Lyons, Steve Johnson) come to mind. Not sure if he has a grudge but it would be an interesting hire. Thoughts?

What? Why are we asking if he's interested?

Remember THIS- even though Joker was a KY kid and a UK player, he himself said he didn't think a 4 or 5 star player would want to come to UK, so he didn't bother....

Is that where we want to set the bar?
 
Well a few years ago Craig Yeast applied for the vacant receivers coaching position and Stoops didn’t even give him an interview.

Yeah. That was a bullsht move not giving him an interview. Talk about not having game awareness. That was our first clue he had a lot of growing up to do as a new HC.
 
Bring back papaw brooks... i bet he's still got it

Probably does. Def as GM. Don't know if he'd coach now.

Would've been nice if he hadn't been run out the first time because he "wasn't a KY guy," and if they'd have done the facility upgrades when he was here that were part of his first agreement to coach here. Broken promises after broken promises there or we might have seen double digit win seasons before 2018.
 
Yes. He was HS coach at the time. Coached his son who went to Louisville and on to the NFL.

Stoops should have hired him, if for no other reason than to get his son at UK.
Legacy recruit.
Yeah, I recall now. Didn't the son end up at Kansas St after a year or 2 at U6?
 
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Even if he didn’t hire him , it was insulting to never let him interview.
The Yeast thing was weird because it looked like Craig was using his own son as leverage in trying to secure his own bag in college coaching.

Why would anybody want an interview knowing that they won't be hired? It's a waste of everybody's time.

You may have more intimate details about the situation because I know that you have ties to Harrodsburg, but the optics on that situation were not good from the Yeast family either. I don't care if Craig is UK's leading receiver if he was trying to get some sort of quid pro quo out of it.
 
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What a dick move especially a helluva receiver that he was and one of our own!
Why does this matter so much? It appears that he expected a high-paying job in exchange for delivering his son, who was only a 3-star prospect, to UK.

When Stoops didn't bend the knee, they had a fit and his son went to UK's instate rival. Do you really think that Stoops was being the d in this situation?
 
Why does this matter so much? It appears that he expected a high-paying job in exchange for delivering his son, who was only a 3-star prospect, to UK.

When Stoops didn't bend the knee, they had a fit and his son went to UK's instate rival. Do you really think that Stoops was being the d in this situation?
He applied for a job in which he was qualified for. Russ had committed way before they even knew there was going to be a recievers coaching position open . No one is saying he should have been hired , but to not even rate an interview was a smack in the face . Craig didn’t have Russ decommit, Russ felt his father had been disrespected and wasn’t going to play for the person who did it .
Look at the revolving door of receivers coaches we have had since . You think we would have been worse with Craig? Meanwhile Russ is a starter in the NFL . UK and Stoops were the big losers in the instance. No way around it .
 
He applied for a job in which he was qualified for. Russ had committed way before they even knew there was going to be a recievers coaching position open . No one is saying he should have been hired , but to not even rate an interview was a smack in the face . Craig didn’t have Russ decommit, Russ felt his father had been disrespected and wasn’t going to play for the person who did it .
Look at the revolving door of receivers coaches we have had since . You think we would have been worse with Craig? Meanwhile Russ is a starter in the NFL . UK and Stoops were the big losers in the instance. No way around it .
He was technically "qualified", but the bigger issue was that he didn't have the recruiting connections of somebody like Lamar Thomas. He is now just an okay high school coach 7+ years after the fact. The only thing he had going for him in that job opening was that he was a former player and he had a son that was a recruit. That's it. UK deserves better than former players with few recruiting connections, and Stoops must have thought so too. Again, an interview is a waste of everybody's time when you're not going to get the job from the outset.

Also, Russ is not a starter in the NFL. He started a few games for the Rams last year after they had injury issues, and then he lost that role because he wasn't good enough. He is barely hanging on to the practice squad of the Texans now because he was cut from the Cardinals practice squad about a month ago.
 
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The Yeast thing was weird because it looked like Craig was using his own son as leverage in trying to secure his own bag in college coaching.

Why would anybody want an interview knowing that they won't be hired? It's a waste of everybody's time.

You may have more intimate details about the situation because I know that you have ties to Harrodsburg, but the optics on that situation were not good from the Yeast family either. I don't care if Craig is UK's leading receiver if he was trying to get some sort of quid pro quo out of it.
That’s not what was happening at all. You would have thought that someone could have called Craig and said “Hey , we already know we’re going to hire Lamar Thomas, would you still want to come in for an interview?”.

People interview for jobs all the time when they know they won’t get them . It was encouraged in the company I worked for. Sometimes it turns into another position or makes an impression to where they call you back in if things don’t work out with the person they hire .
 
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He was technically "qualified", but the bigger issue was that he didn't have the recruiting connections of somebody like Lamar Thomas. He is now just an okay high school coach 7+ years after the fact. The only thing he had going for him in that job opening was that he was a former player and he had a son that was a recruit. That's it. UK deserves better than former players with few recruiting connections, and Stoops must have thought so too. Again, an interview is a waste of everybody's time when you're not going to get the job from the outset.

Also, Russ is not a starter in the NFL. He started a few games for the Rams last year after they had injury issues, and then he lost that role because he wasn't good enough. He is barely hanging on to the practice squad of the Texans now because he was cut from the Cardinals practice squad about a month ago.
Just the fact that you are trying to act like Russ wouldn’t have been a very good player here because he currently isn’t a starter in the nfl tells me all I need to know about you.

You say “maybe you have more intimate details “ and then disregard everything I say.

I’m done with you .
 
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Just the fact that you are trying to act like Russ wouldn’t have been a very good player here because he currently isn’t a starter in the nfl tells me all I need to know about you.

You say “maybe you have more intimate details “ and then disregard everything I say.

I’m done with you .
I'm not acting like he wouldn't have been a good college player for UK. He was 1st-team All-Big 12 at Kansas State. But, it also wasn't worth fluffing his dad to keep him as a recruit. That situation just screamed cancer.
 
Russ felt his father had been disrespected and wasn’t going to play for the person who did it .
In other words, he got mad at UK. As a result of getting mad, he chose to go to Louisville instead. Despite having other offers, going to Louisville because you are mad at UK is a b*tch move. I don't care who you are.
 
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