Freshman quarterback Amani Gilmore making strides for UK. Could he play soon?
Lynn Bowden, a wide receiver, will probably start a fifth straight game at quarterback for Kentucky when it travels to Vanderbilt this weekend. If the Wildcats’ claws come out in Nashville and things get out of hand against the 2-7 Commodores, which, and how many, of the three healthy scholarship quarterbacks are most likely to take the reins?
Sawyer Smith was the immediate backup to injured starter Terry Wilson before a series of arm injuries sidelined him. He’s available, but seemingly just in case of emergency. Other than the Cats’ final offensive series against Missouri, in which he handed the ball off six straight times to A.J. Rose to drain clock, Smith has just appeared twice: he converted a fourth-and-1 run against Tennessee and spelled Bowden for three plays as he nursed an ankle injury against the Tigers. Both of those drives ended in touchdown runs by Rose. He’s thrown one pass in 10 snaps, but the smart money is on Smith to get the most time in a blowout.
Walker Wood, a star at nearby Lafayette High School, has still yet to play a snap in a UK jersey. Wood, set back by injuries early in his career, has been listed as the No. 2 option at times, but his lack of playing time in an injury-plagued season has revealed more about the coaches’ confidence in him than their vocal admiration does. An optimist would like Wood’s chances to get some run in a rout situation, but who knows at this point?
And then there’s Amani Gilmore, one of two true freshman quarterbacks on the roster (the other, Nik Scalzo, is a non-option after undergoing a second knee surgery before the season started). Gilmore, a three-star prospect out of Louisiana, has practiced with the scout team this season and has never been listed on the depth chart. He will, however, travel with the team to Vanderbilt, and would still be eligible for a redshirt season regardless of how many games in which he plays (hypothetically) through the remainder of 2019.
Darin Hinshaw, UK’s co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, said Gilmore “could be a guy we put in” against the Commodores, if there’s a situation that the staff feels comfortable doing so.
“Does he know a lot of the base offense? Yeah, if we put him in, he could go in there and go function,” Hinshaw told the Herald-Leader. “A lot of what we’re doing now (with Bowden), he doesn’t know because we had to change as we were going.”
Wide receivers coach Michael Smith, who was Gilmore’s lead recruiter, has seen him make big strides in his development in the last month.
“I challenged Amani,” said Smith. “From the first bye week to the second bye week, you could see the progress that he made. Coach Hinshaw has done a tremendous job of working on some of his mechanical things, some things that he might have been deficient in at that point, going into the first bye week. When we let him take reps that second bye week, he was 20 times better.”
Kentucky is on track to redshirt its entire 2019 signing class, perhaps the first time in program history it’s been able to achieve such a feat. No freshman this season has played in more than three games, and several have yet to play once.
That could change as soon as this weekend, and definitely should against FCS foe Tennessee Martin. Will the Cats try to get a gander at what their youngest quarterback can do?
“I think with all the young guys we have, if we’re ever given that opportunity, I’m sure we’d like to get all of them in there, and that’s including Amani,” Smith said. “Because there’s nothing like playing experience. That’s something I think everybody can benefit from.”
Saturday
Kentucky at Vanderbilt
When: 3:30 p.m. EST
TV: SEC Network
Records: Kentucky 4-5 (2-5 SEC), Vanderbilt 2-7 (1-5)
