Cobb, Hartline continue to shine. Cats roll again

Many fans were hoping this offseason that one of UK's younger talented quarterbacks could beat out Senior Mike Hartline for the starting job. Hartline had to start the season off exceptionally well to quiet the doubters, and he's done just that. Against the Hilltoppers on Saturday, Hartline passed 213 yards and three touchdowns on 16-of-20 passing. In both of his games combined, Hartline is 33-of-46 on the season for 430 yards with three scores, a rushing touchdown and no interceptions. Hartline came into the season with mixed reviews, but there's no question that everyone had extremely high expectations for Junior WR/QB/PR Randall Cobb.



The Legend of Cobb continued last night when he threw a touchdown pass, caught a touchdown pass, and returned a punt for a touchdown all in one game for a combined 192 all-purpose yards. Against Louisville, Cobb had a rushing touchdown. In 2 games, he has 4 touchdowns (1 passing, 1 rushing, 1 receiving, and 1 special teams) on only 24 touches. He's scoring a touchdown every 6 times he touches the ball. To this point, if you think another player in the country should win the Heisman trophy, you're ignorant. He hasn't played against the best competition yet, but neither have most players at this point. As a Junior, Cobb is only 6 touchdowns away from tying Craig Yeast's all-time TD record at Kentucky.

For Cobb to get serious Heisman consideration, he'll have to have a lot of other guys making plays all around him to keep the defense honest. He'll also have to play on a team that wins 10+ games and competes for an SEC Eastern Division Title. So far in the young season, all of these things seem very possible of happening. In 2 games, Hartline has thrown for over 200 yards in both outings with 0 interceptions. Kentucky has also ran for over 200 yards in each game. Against Western, UK had 8 players catch a total of 19 passes and another 8 players rush for positive yardage, led by Derrick Locke's 105 yards on the ground.

Kentucky had a big lead for the 2nd week in a row going into halftime. The Cats scored 42 points in the first half. Reserves came into the game midway through the 3rd quarter and performed well on route to a 63 point offensive performance. Sophomore Morgan Newton was 2 for 2 passing for 48 yards and Redshirt Freshman QB Ryan Mossakowski made his college debut. Freshmen Raymond Sanders and Donald Russel also impressed on the ground in the 2nd half. There's no question that the Cats are stacked at nearly every position on offense and they have depth that has never been seen here at UK on the offensive side of the ball. Kentucky's 2007 team had plenty of offensive weapons, but they didn't have 2nd and 3rd string backups that were capable of filling in after an injury like this team does.

One of the few question marks for the Cats continues to be the kicking game. Kicker Ryan Tydlacka has missed a field goal in both games this season. The defense is also still a work in progress and must improve before the Cats face the Gators in Gainesville in 2 weeks. Kentucky has a very young and inexperienced defense that simply has given up too much in the first two games of the season. WKU running back Bobby Rainey ran for 187 yards against the Cats. Granted, Rainey also ran for 150 yards against Nebraska, but if there's areas the Cats need to improve: it's kicking and defense.

Despite these issues, the Cats have looked awfully good overall in the first two games of the Joker Phillips era. He has become the first UK head coach to start his career 2-0 since Bear Bryant. Other SEC East foes seem to have plenty to work on themselves and the East is up for anyone to grab. Florida trailed South Florida at halftime, Georgia only mustered 6 points against South Carolina, Vanderbilt lost to LSU, and Tennessee was blown out by Oregon last night. South Carolina and Kentucky might just be the two teams to beat at this point, but I'd never bet against Urban Meyer's Gators to get things going eventually. Kentucky will have one more tune-up this coming Saturday against Akron before the Cats' SEC slate begins at the Swamp.

Hartline Named Starting QB

"We feel like we have three quarterbacks we can win with in this league, we really do," Phillips said. "We told them that. That's a good problem to have but right now we feel like Mike Hartline gives us the best chance to win. He's been more efficient. He's playing faster than the other two and at this point he gives us the best chance to win. He was slightly ahead at all times, no question about that but not far ahead enough that we felt like we had to make a decision. It was very difficult, it really was. He gives us the best chance at this point in time, he might not in a couple of weeks, but he does now." - Joker Phillips

So, there you have it. Hartline is once again the starting Quarterback in his Senior campaign. Although Coach Phillips indicated that there will NOT be a rotation of Quarterbacks like we sometimes saw last season, he left open the possibility of another Quarterback taking over the position in "a couple of weeks". I tend to agree that Hartline gives us the best opportunity to win "right now". He's 2-0 against Louisville in his career including a win on the road, while the other two quarterbacks have not played against Louisville.

Hartline has proved that he is able to consistently beat all the teams that he is supposed to beat, and UK should beat the first three teams on their schedule. Kentucky fans also must not forget that Hartline threw for 139 yards and a touchdown in just one half against South Carolina before his season ending injury last year. He had the Cats going into the locker room with a lead and the Cats couldn't get it into the endzone without him in the second half, eventually falling 28-26 to the Gamecocks.

Once the Cats get into SEC play, on the other hand, I'm not sure Hartline gives us the best opportunity to win big in the SEC. He will get us to a fifth straight bowl game, but Joker obviously has higher goals and aspirations moving forward for this program. Morgan Newton won 2 SEC road games last season at Auburn and at Georgia. I'd expect Newton to get some quality second half PT against Western Kentucky and Akron. That will be his opportunity to prove that he could be the man going into SEC play, if things aren't clicking with Hartline. Talented Redshirt Sophomore Ryan Mossakowski appears to still be third on the depth chart.

QB Race: too close to call after Spring Game

Senior QB Mike Hartline started out shaky with an interception in his opening drive, but settled down and finished throwing for 124 yards and a touchdown in today's Blue/White Scrimmage. In an offense vs. defense scrimmage, the Cats' offensive unit rotated all three competing quarterbacks in each drive. Hartline started the game in the first drive, then Redshirt Freshman Ryan Mossakowski followed him and immediately impressed with his arm and his legs, and then Sophomore Morgan Newton came in for the third offensive drive. The Cats kept this 3 man rotation throughout the entire scrimmage, and all three quarterbacks impressed.

Newton started off quiet, but showed flashes of brilliance towards the end as he completed the longest pass of the day (41 yards) to Senior Wide Receiver, Chris Matthews, and also eluded two rushing defensive lineman in the same drive before completing a 19 yard strike to another Senior WR, Gene McCaskill. The UK Defensive Line pressured the Quarterbacks all day long, but all three of them did a good job moving around under pressure and finding open receivers. Newton and Mossakowski each also made big gains on the ground, but the running game today belonged to Sophomore TB Donald Russell, from West Palm Beach, FL.

After today's performance (9 carries for 118 yards and 2 touchdowns, including a 65 yard run), Russell looks to be the Cats' secondary tailback behind Senior, Derrick Locke, whom did not see much action today. Another star from last season who didn't get his name called much was Randall Cobb. Cobb played receiver and was thrown to a couple of times and made a couple of catches, but was not used in the Wildcat formation. Coach Phillips insisted that Cobb will be used often in the Wildcat next fall, but that there were other areas of the offense that needed more work today in the scrimmage and the three primary Quarterbacks needed more repetitions. As a Senior, Hartline appeared to be a very slight favorite for the Quarterback race at the beginning of Spring Practice, however, both Newton and Mossakowski closed ground on him this spring and the race is currently too close to call. Phillips sees this as a positive and believes that we can win with all three of them and that a stater would not be named until fall camp.

(Pictured above is UK President Lee Todd and Denver Broncos' LB and UK great, Wesley Woodyard checking out the UK Spring Game)