Why UK’s top NFL draft prospect is confident in Brad White’s defense, future of secondary

It would be close to impossible to describe the final moments of the 2023 Kentucky football season as a boost for the future of the Wildcats’ defense.

With both starting cornerbacks sidelined by injury and the Wildcats trying to protect 34-30 lead with 2:34 remaining, UK coach Mark Stoops and defensive coordinator Brad White elected to try and protect the backup defensive backs forced into action by relying heavily on a soft zone protection scheme. The decision backfired as Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik completed 8 of 9 passes for 71 yards to March the Tigers down the field for the game-winning touchdown with 17 seconds remaining.

Included in the drive were first downs after Clemson faced a third-and-10 and third-and-18.

So, when Kentucky lost one of those starting cornerbacks unavailable for that drive, junior Andru Phillips, to the NFL draft, it was easy to worry Phillips’ potential replacements were not ready for featured roles.

Phillips does not share those worries though.

“You see their growth from January to this past January right before I left, it’s night and day how much they’ve grown since being in the facility,” Phillips said Thursday at the NFL combine when asked about the progress of former transfers JQ Hardaway, Jantzen Dunn and Jordan Robinson, who were on the field for the final Gator Bowl drive. “It’s just growing up and getting ready to eventually be starters in the SEC. I think this next year, it’s going to take off, it’s going to show the preparation they put in this past year.”

Phillips’ decision to forgo his remaining eligibility and enter the draft came as a surprise to many Kentucky fans, but Stoops hinted shortly after the regular season finale upset of Louisville that Phillips had piqued the interest of NFL scouts.

“I had a good year,” Phillips said. “For me, I feel like I was ready, definitely, to come out. It was time to come here and compete. I knew I’d do a good job.”

That decision already appears to have been justified as Phillips has begun to climb NFL draft prospect rankings after a strong performance at the Senior Bowl.

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler recently ranked him as the No. 69 prospect in the 2024 draft class. No other Kentucky player made Brugler’s top 100 list.

No defensive back needs reminding that fans’ perception of his performance can be skewed by any mistakes since errors are easier to spot than dozens of examples of good coverage where the ball is not even thrown to the player he is defending. Phillips seems to have fallen into that trap in the minds of some Kentucky fans, but the same could have been said about former Wildcat Carrington Valentine a year ago.

After electing to leave school early for the draft, Valentine was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the seventh round. He then started 12 of 17 games as a rookie.

“We were in the same room for three years together,” Phillips said. “Definitely seeing that, that was a lot of confidence for me to go out there and do it as well.”

In his breakdown of Phillips, Brugler acknowledged that Phillips’ UK production “won’t jump off the page,” but his versatility is a strength after playing both cornerback and nickel back at UK.

White’s propensity to lean on zone coverages like the one used on the final Gator Bowl drive has become a popular target of criticism over the last year, but Phillips pushed back on those arguments during his combine news conference.

“You can say soft zone, but it’s a difficult zone as well,” he said. “Coach White, it’s not just one zone. You’ve got to learn everything at a very high level. It may look like something, but it’s really not. Coming from that to the NFL, how technical and difficult that scheme was, it’s going to translate very well.”

Phillips is likely to become the fourth Kentucky cornerback drafted since White took over as defensive coordinator in 2019. He would give defensive backs coach Chris Collins, who recently was awarded a contract extension by UK, a second consecutive draft pick.

“Coach Collins knows what he’s doing,” Phillips said. “Being around him for three years, he’s impressive. He knows what he’s talking about, and at the same time, he’s a great teacher within the game. Each year, he’s prepared me more and more to get to this stage. It’s going to trickle down to the young guys.”

Junior cornerback Maxwell Hairston, who tied for the SEC lead in interceptions last season, is expected to anchor Kentucky’s secondary next season after returning from the injury that sidelined him in the Gator Bowl, but more help will be needed.

Hardaway, Robinson and Dunn will face competition from sophomore Nasir Addison and a trio of high school mid-year enrollees when spring practice opens in March. Kentucky could still look to supplement the position in the transfer portal when the window for undergraduates to transfer opens in April.

But Phillips still believes the late failures in the Gator Bowl might have a positive impact after all.

“If you go through the whole game we were dominating the entire game,” Phillips said. “At the end they let some plays get away, we let some plays get away. So, it’s just motivation. We did the whole three quarters. It’s just you’ve got to put that fourth one together.

“Just knowing you’ve got that puts extra into each workout to finish each game. That’s enough motivation to get the whole team going.”

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