Don’t look for Kentucky Coach Rich Brooks to ride off into the sunset after the AutoZone Liberty Bowl

On Thursday, Brooks shot down the notion that it would be perfect timing for him to step down if the Wildcats win its AutoZone Liberty Bowl matchup against East Carolina on Friday.

ESPN.com’s Chris Low wrote this week if Brooks was able to guide the Wildcats to a third straight bowl win, something that hasn’t been done since 1949-50-51, that it would be a good time to walk away and turn the program over to head-coach-in-waiting Joker Phillips.

“The 67-year-old Brooks could exit with the satisfaction of knowing that he leaves the program much better than he found it,” Low wrote. “A win would give the Wildcats 23 wins over the last three seasons, matching their best three-year win total since 1976-78.”

When asked about Low’s article on Thursday, Brooks said he hasn’t entertained any thoughts of stepping down after the game.

“Maybe it would be a perfect time to try for four (straight bowl wins),” he said.

Kentucky Coach Rich Brooks said two starters from last fall who missed the 2008 season are on track to get back on the field in 2009. Christian Johnson, who was sidelined by a back injury and academic woes, has been practicing since mid-season. Johnson, who has 15 career starts at left guard, will not be eligible to travel for the bowl game, but still has the spring and summer to get himself in good academic standing. Paul Warford, who has 14 career starts at cornerback, has been re-admitted to UK after the spring semester after being ruled academically ineligible in the fall. Brooks said he expects Warford to return to the team.

UK Coach Rich Brooks and his staff have been evaluating the younger Cats during the open date, and he likes what he’s seen so far. The Wildcats had a scrimmage featuring the true freshmen and redshirt freshman on Thursday and will take the weekend off before resuming preparations for Tennessee on Sunday.

Brooks identified several redshirt freshmen who could skyrocket up the depth chart next fall. Perhaps one of the most impressive has been defensive end Collins Ukwu, a late signee who originally committed to Middle Tennessee State. The 6-foot-4 Ukwu arrived in Lexington last summer as a lean, sleek 207-pounder but is now a buff 243 pounds.

Brooks said the future of the offensive line is in good shape with Matt Smith, Dave Ulinskki and Trevino Woods, and Brooks and Brown tabbed William Johnson as another player likely to find himself in the rotation next year. Johnson, a 6-foot-3, 200-pounder with speed and athleticism, could be in the mix at either outside linebacker or safety.

The University of Kentucky will have a junior-varsity game on Monday, Nov. 17 at Commonwealth Stadium against Fork Union Military Academy. Kickoff is set for noon.

UK sophomore running back Moncell Allen played at Fork Union for one season before enrolling at UK, and 2008 signee Donte Rumph currently plays for Fork Union.

The Wildcats have an open date next week before facing the University of Tennessee on Nov. 29.

Kentucky Coach Rich Brooks took full responsibility for his team’s 63-5 loss at Florida on Saturday one day after watching the carnage on film. When asked if it the film was as bad as it looked live, Brooks said, “It might have been worse.”

Defensive end Jeremy Jarmon defended the coaches after the game, saying the players were properly prepared but just didn’t execute. But Brooks wasn’t hearing any of that.

“That’s my job to get them to (execute),” Brooks said. “It was almost a total systems failure. When you have breakdowns in blocking assignments, execution, getting lined up right, and communication, those are the things that I’m responsible for.

“I’m dissatisfied across the board and that’s why I put it on my shoulders. For us to play as poorly as we did across the board is unacceptable. I know Florida is a good team and had a week off, and they did do a few different things and took advantage of that. Having said that, I’ve got to have my team better prepared than I did.”

UK coach Rich Brooks and offensive coordinator Joker Phillips will spend a lot of time this week trying to get the offense fixed after the Cats gained only 218 yards and converted just 1-of-18 third downs against the Gamecocks.

Lyons’ loss hampers a receiving unit that been struggling even with him in the lineup. Freshman Randall Cobb resumed his quarterback/receiver role after sitting out virtually all of the past two games with a high ankle sprain. Cobb caught eight passes for 52 yards against South Carolina, but Brooks said he could get more snaps at quarterback behind sophomore Mike Hartline.

“We’ll just have to judge that as we go forward,” Brooks said about the quarterback situation. “Obviously he had some conditioning issues. He tweaked his good ankle, but his bad ankle made it through OK. We’ll have to see how its respond. But (his time at QB) could increase a little bit. We just need to find some way to move the football.”

Brooks said the offense is having a difficult time getting all of the positions on the same page.

“It takes 11 guys on offense to execute plays,” Brooks said. “We had eight, nine, sometimes ten people executing sometimes, and then somebody would make a mistake. We just have to go back to fundamentals and get things moving.”

Much like South Carolina last week, UK is catching Arkansas fresh off its biggest win of the season. Junior tailback Michael Smith ran through the Auburn defense for 163 yards, and Arkansas held a 416-193 advantage in total yards.

“That was a huge win for them on the road,” Brooks said. “They moved the football on a very good Auburn defense and ran it extremely well, and they smothered Auburn’s offense. It’s eerie. It looks a little bit like it did against South Carolina. Now we’re catching (Arkansas) when they’re starting to put things together. It’s a huge game for us to get back on track and try and get a SEC win.”

Other injuries

Brooks ruled right tackle Justin Jeffries out of this week’s game. Right guard Stuart Hines (knee) will also be out. Receiver DeMoreo Ford (shoulder), linebacker Mike Schwindel (shoulder), receiver Kyrus Lanxter (shoulder) and tight end Maurice Grinter (ankle) are all questionable.

The University of Kentucky 2008 football season is both at its midpoint and at a crossroads.

The Wildcats are coming off a debilitating 24-17 loss to South Carolina. They lost their top receiver, Dicky Lyons, Jr., to a knee injury. And they have major issues on offense.

If that wasn’t bad enough, what had looked a likely win against Arkansas is now looking like a potential barnburner. After getting beat in its first three Southeastern Conference games by a combined score of 139-31, Bobby Petrino’s Razorbacks went to Auburn and stunned the previously-ranked Tigers 25-22. The Hogs (3-3, 1-2) are now suddenly back in the picture for bowl eligibility, while the postseason seems less of a certainty for the Wildcats than it did a couple of weeks ago.

The Cats’ second half of the season has gone opposite ways the past two seasons. In 2006, the Cats lost at home to South Carolina, also by a score of 24-17, to fall to 3-3 on the season.

UK went 4-2 on the back stretch that year and beat Clemson in the Music City Bowl to wrap up an 8-5 season.

Kentucky’s first loss of the 2007 season came also came in the sixth game to South Carolina. The Wildcats would beat No. 1 LSU the following week but lost three of its final four regular season games and finished with the same 8-5 record as the year before.

“You’ve got two ways to go,” Brooks said on Sunday. “You can go back to the drawing board and work harder at getting better, or you can give in to frustration and disappointment and screw up the rest of your season. We’ve been in both situations.”

The University of Kentucky is ranked 28th in this week’s Associated Press and Coaches’ polls. Alabama, UK’s upcoming opponent, is ranked second in the AP poll and fourth in the coaches’ poll. The Crimson Tide won at then-No. 3 Georgia 41-30 on Saturday.

UK coach Rich Brooks accused Middle Tennessee of stealing some of his team’s signals during the Wildcats’ 20-14 win on Saturday.

This isn’t the first time that Kentucky has felt like they’ve being spied on. During last year’s 52-50 four-overtime loss to Tennessee, towels were placed around members of the UK staff in order to cover up signals.

“They were either getting them from the field or the press box,” Brooks said of MTSU. “They might have gotten some help from Tennessee. Tennessee had them last year.”

Cornerback Trevard Lindley and punter / kicker Tim Masthay will be the game captains for Saturday’s contest vs. Middle Tennessee State, Coach Rich Brooks has announced.

Game captains are normally selected on the basis of performance in the previous game.  In UK’s 38-3 win over Norfolk State, Lindley led the Wildcats with six tackles and had an interception and a pass breakup.  Masthay played a key role in helping UK get a decisive advantage in field position.  Masthay averaged 44 yards per punt while nailing six touchbacks on seven kickoffs.  This is the second-consecutive week that Masthay has earned the game-captain role.

Lindley and Masthay will join permanent captains Tony Dixon and Braxton Kelley at the pregame coin toss.