The latest on UK’s quarterback situation, straight from ... the golf course
Liam Coen will get to refine his offense when the University of Kentucky’s fall football camp gets underway in early August. That leaves just a few days for UK’s first-year offensive coordinator to iron out the finer details of his golf game; he spent Wednesday doing just that as part of a best-ball group that also included UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart and Deputy Athletics Director Marc Hill during the PGA Barbasol Championship Pro-Am.
Well, not just that. He also fielded questions about Kentucky’s quarterback position, the biggest “unknown” going into the 2021 season, for, probably, the 211th straight day since he was hired on Dec. 15.
UK focused on studying and installing Coen’s offense in the spring. Fall camp will be more about determining what works best and who’s executing it best, especially at signal-caller. Penn State transfer Will Levis in May joined a room with three returnees, among them Lexington Catholic graduate Beau Allen and another former transfer in Joey Gatewood, as well as freshman signee Kaiya Sheron, who enrolled early out of Somerset High School.
“It’s a good problem to have ’cause you’ve got good competition at the position, which always helps,” Coen said prior to his round Wednesday at Keene Trace Golf Club. “ ... I think the guys that were here in the spring probably earned some respect in terms of showing their teammates that they can get better and they’re ready to work at this new challenge. I think Will’s work ethic and the way he carries himself has helped him step into a new locker room and, ultimately, hope to earn that respect.”
At least in part due to the rapidity with which he was linked to UK following Coen’s hire, Levis has blossomed into the front runner for the starting job left behind by Terry Wilson, who transferred to New Mexico in the offseason. Coen hasn’t been able to work one-on-one with him, but UK’s strength-and-conditioning and other support staff have had nothing but good things to say about how Levis is handling the transition.
Levis missed spring camp because he was finishing a bachelor’s program at Penn State but stayed in the loop via Zoom, and has been working remotely with Rob Williams, a Canada-based biomechanics coach who’s helped improve his passing accuracy and efficiency. (Allen has started working with Williams as well.)
Whoever comes out on top will have little in-game experience under his belt. Gatewood started one game for UK last year and has played in 14 total games since his first season at Auburn in 2018. Levis, who’s in the same class as Gatewood, started once and played in 15 games for the Nittany Lions. Allen, who appeared in two games as a true freshman last year, rounds out the “experienced” quarterbacks on Kentucky’s roster.
Levis was used more as a running quarterback at Penn State, where he finished with 473 career rushing yards, good for 10th all-time at the position there. If he’s to solidify himself as the guy UK should start, he’ll have to demonstrate his improvement to the most important critics he’ll see all season.
“At the end of the day, all the workouts and stuff like that is important, but your teammates want to see you do it in practice, and consistently, against them,” Coen said. “Not routes on air, not doing stuff on your own or with guys in the summer.
“They want to see you prove it on the field.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 12:26 PM.
