‘Completely different.’ Sawyer Smith leads Kentucky QBs as spring practice begins.
Sawyer Smith is Kentucky’s starting quarterback ... at least as spring camp gets underway.
Smith, the lone quarterback available for the Wildcats who’s actually started a college football game, received first-team reps Tuesday, the first day of UK’s spring practice season. The other three healthy quarterbacks on scholarship — Beau Allen, Joey Gatewood and Amani Gilmore — are rotating reps with the No. 2 and No. 3 offensive groups.
Kentucky co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw said as camp progresses that trio will get time with the No. 1 unit. For now, Smith’s first in line.
“He was like the Sawyer we got last year at the start of camp,” Hinshaw told reporters Tuesday. “He did good. There’s a lot of things we can get better at from day one, but I was really pleased with all the quarterbacks.”
After Terry Wilson suffered a season-ending injury during UK’s second game of the season, Smith entered and finished 5-for-9 for 76 yards and two touchdown passes. He was similarly effective against Florida in his first start — 267 yards and two TDs on 23-of-35 passing, but with three interceptions — before the wheels fell off in consecutive road starts; Smith combined to go 26-of-73 for 322 yards, two interceptions and no scores at Mississippi State and South Carolina. A bye week came after the trip to Columbia, during which wide receiver Lynn Bowden took over first-team quarterback duties.
Smith, a grad transfer from Troy who didn’t arrive on campus until right before last fall camp, played with wrist and shoulder injuries that stymied his effectiveness in his latter starts. He saw spot action toward the end of the season and was unable to fully rest while serving as Bowden’s backup; a couple months of recovery has him feeling back at full strength.
“Completely different,” Hinshaw said of how Smith looked Tuesday. “Confident. As soon as he went back in there, he was relaxed. It was a totally different Sawyer than we saw during the season when he had a broken wrist and separated shoulder and was trying to play. It was hard on the kid.”
Click here for UK’s complete 2020 spring football roster.
Terry Wilson
Hinshaw and co-offensive coordinator Eddie Gran seem optimistic about the makeup of the quarterback room as a whole, especially with the expected return of Wilson, who’s 12-3 as the Wildcats’ starter.
It was good to settle back into more of a normal offense rather than the run-heavy schemes used to feature Bowden last season.
“The first day it’s hard to tell, but it sure was fun,” Gran said. “A lot of energy and I’m really excited about it. That group, there’s some guys that can sling it. They’re swimming, but they should be on the first day.”
Wilson is still limited as he recovers from a torn patellar tendon, but Hinshaw is hopeful that he’ll be ready to take true snaps as soon as the end of spring camp.
Until then, he’ll be doing light work with the coaches and monitoring the action from their point of view.
“He’s gonna be out there behind the quarterback, literally he’s taking a mental rep every time,” Hinshaw said. “I’m telling him to go through steps, pointing where to throw, pointing where he should be going, so we’re filming him also, doing some of that stuff. The mental part is gonna be huge.”
Backup QBs
Of the available backup quarterbacks, only Gilmore has had more than a month to study the playbook.
“I learned a lot from sitting out last season,” Gilmore told the Herald-Leader. “The only thing I could do is really learn from what they were doing on the field, see what they were doing wrong and learn from their mistakes.”
During his recruitment Gilmore, a prep baseball standout, raised the possibility of being a dual-sport athlete in Lexington. That was still on the table as recently as the fall but the redshirt freshman is focused on improving himself as a quarterback, so he declined an opportunity to compete on the diamond.
“I knew it was important, so I just did what I had to do,” Gilmore said. “I know I can compete. I’m getting to know the plays this spring and I feel way more comfortable with the plays and what’s going on in the room.”
Gatewood said it hasn’t been difficult to adjust at UK from Auburn. He lives off campus, now, but even that hasn’t been much of a shake-up.
“I really don’t live far, so it’s pretty good,” Gatewood said with a grin.
An NCAA proposal set to be voted on in April would allow first-time football transfers, beginning immediately with the 2020-21 school year, to be eligible play right away at their new school. Gatewood would seemingly benefit from that change if it’s approved.
Understandably, he’s for it.
“I wanna do whatever I can to go play,” Gatewood said. “I wanna go compete, I wanna go play, just play this game. I feel like I’ve been sitting out without playing football for so long it feels so long. ... I was happy when I saw that. It could make everything a lot easier.”
Notes
▪ Redshirt freshman linebacker J.J. Weaver changed his jersey number from 45 to 13. Junior defensive back Cedric Dort is wearing 7 now instead of 27. Allen’s number, 11, is the one he wore in high school. Gatewood wore the number 1 at Auburn but has donned 2 — made famous by Tim Couch — at UK.
▪ Jared Casey, a redshirt freshman, is now listed as an inside linebacker instead of an outside linebacker.
▪ Sophomore linebacker Alex King is not listed UK’s spring roster.
Important upcoming dates
March 27: UK Pro Day
April 11: Blue-White Spring Game
