’We want to win more games.’ For Kentucky in 2021, it will start at quarterback.
As of February, the only thing known about the University of Kentucky’s quarterback position is that Terry Wilson, the starter for most of the last three seasons, won’t be in it.
Wilson, a senior with an extra year of eligibility afforded to him by the NCAA via its COVID-19 waiver, announced in January that he was entering the transfer portal, ending a three-year run with the Wildcats that saw him win 17 starts, including two in postseason bowls, and finish as the first quarterback in program history to exceed 3,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards in a career.
On multiple occasions throughout the 2020 season Wilson suggested that it would be his final year of college football. His decision to enter the portal caught some off guard, head coach Mark Stoops included.
“He and I have never had a conversation about leaving or staying,” Stoops said in a recent interview with the Herald-Leader. “ … I’m grateful for Terry, for what he’s done and the career that he had here. He helped us win a lot of games. As far as that conversation about coming back or not or anything like, to be honest with you, I never had that with him. That was his choice and I did nothing but support him. And will continue to.”
When asked for comment about his decision to transfer and his conversations with Stoops, Wilson in a text message to the Herald-Leader wrote: “I love Kentucky. This is home!”
A second Kentucky quarterback, Nik Scalzo, entered the portal in January before removing his name from it a week later. In addition to Scalzo, who due to injury has yet to take an in-game snap for UK since arriving on campus in 2019, there are three other scholarship quarterbacks on the roster: junior-to-be Joey Gatewood; former Lexington Catholic standout Beau Allen, who will be a redshirt freshman this fall; and Kaiya Sheron, a true freshman from Somerset High School who enrolled in January. Will Levis, predominantly a backup the last three seasons at Penn State, will enroll at Kentucky this summer, bringing the total number of guys in the running to five.
New offensive coordinator Liam Coen, who will also coach UK’s quarterbacks, during his introductory press conference noted the type of player he’d like to put under center.
“Ideally, we’d like to find somebody who’s a true passer first but can also extend plays and make some plays out of the pocket,” Coen said in December. “ … It really depends on the talent and what we have and who really shows up to be the guy in that room. All avenues are open in my opinion.”
Kentucky’s inability to generate balance and mitigate predictability with its offense was a factor in its inability to separate itself from the middle of the pack in the Southeastern Conference the last two seasons. Hence a staff shakeup despite the previous regime having historic success in the run game.
Whatever gains UK is able to make with a shift in its offensive philosophy will be predicated on more than one person, but even Stoops — ever adamant that successes and failures never hinge on one player — concedes the value of having a difference-maker at quarterback.
“I think it’s fair to say you need to be elite to take your team to another level at that position,” Stoops said.
Elite
Kentucky doesn’t have an “elite” quarterback talent on its roster, at least as far as star ratings go. Gatewood, who transferred from Auburn, was the highest-rated recruit coming out of high school, and he and Allen seem, at this point, to be co-front-runners for the open job. Gatewood probably has a slight edge, on paper, given age, but that’s not going to be the determining factor by the fall. His move from Auburn was in part prompted by a true freshman (Bo Nix) winning the job over him; if Allen, or even Sheron, is the best performer in UK’s new offense, he would be the starter.
Scalzo’s flirtation with the transfer portal suggests he doesn’t foresee playing time in Lexington, but he can’t be discounted. And then there’s a wild card in Levis; was his decision to transfer to Kentucky made knowing that he’ll have a good chance at the starting job despite arriving late? How he fits into the equation, more than any of the five signal-callers, will shape the room’s immediate and further-off future.
UK has gotten good performances from its quarterbacks under Stoops, but nobody would mistake any of the 10 guys who’ve started in his eight seasons for “elite” players. In that span, Kentucky has had just nine games in which a quarterback threw for 300 or more yards, and none since 2016. Alabama and Clemson each had that many last season; in modern college football, if you’re not passing the ball well, your ceiling’s only so high.
“Where I’ve grown is where I think we can be, what I think we can look like,” Stoops said the day Coen was hired. “And that’s what we’re gonna do. We’ve got a plan in place to do that now instead of trying to put a square peg in a round hole.”
Now, Alabama and Clemson have had generational talents play quarterback for them over the last half decade. For the most part they, and a handful of other schools, are in a position to hand-pick their rosters, and can regularly surround can’t-miss quarterbacks with some of the best blockers and catchers in the country. If one’s expectation is for Kentucky’s offense to fire away with gusto akin to Alabama’s while fielding a fraction of the talent, then it’s probably best to avert your eyes now.
Georgia, even with all of its advantages in terms of talent acquisition, has more often failed than it has succeeded at producing dynamic offense at a clip necessary to keep itself in the same league as the regular playoff challengers (Georgia has played in one College Football Playoff since it started in the 2014 season). And that’s a program that’s figured things out well enough to dominate the SEC’s East Division for the better part of the last decade.
Stylistically on offense, UK has been closer to Georgia the last few years than it was to other top programs. And while the Cats haven’t beaten the Bulldogs under Stoops, the games have been competitive in recent seasons. It’s telling then, in hindsight, that Georgia combined to complete 18 of only 26 pass attempts against the Wildcats the last two meetings and won by double digits each time; if UK appeared even the least bit threatening in the passing game, it might have come out a victor in either, but it combined to go 17-for-41 in those contests.
The examples are plenty, but those outcomes perhaps speak most loudly to why a retooling was needed. They can, however, also be held up as reminders of how Kentucky was able to close a gap despite at times having its hands tied behind its back, particularly last year with a schedule loaded with SEC foes.
“This past year, we were guaranteed 10 (games),” Stoops said. “And they were all SEC games. I can tell you this, the physical and mental strain of those 10 far outweigh a normal schedule of 12.”
Coen, and whoever wins the quarterback job, should have the advantages of a normal 12-game schedule and “guarantee” games that aid against the abrasion of conference competition. A bounce-back effort from Kentucky in 2021 would see it finish with a winning record for the fifth time under Stoops; an impressive effort would see it win at a higher clip, and with a bit more pizzazz.
“What we consider a rough year (going 5-6), and we’re still right in the middle of the pack of the SEC? We’re not happy with that,” Stoops said. “Is it progress? I don’t know, that’s for you to write and people to judge.
“I know this: we want to win more games.”
