Should Rich Scangarello have run QB more? Health of Will Levis complicates question.

Everyone associated with Kentucky football’s offense is in agreement on at least one fact.

The physical toll from being sacked 33 times this season has led to a number of ailments that have greatly hampered the mobility of star quarterback Will Levis.

“Will being banged up and not having a quarterback run game, not being 100%, it doesn’t help when you’re in the red zone in particular,” Kentucky Coach Mark Stoops said Monday.

What is less clear is how much offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello would have allowed Levis to run even if fully healthy.

Levis arrived at Kentucky as a transfer from Penn State who felt he had been unfairly cast as a run-first quarterback by the Nittany Lions coaching staff. Former Kentucky offensive coordinator Liam Coen’s faith that Levis could also make plays with his arm attracted the Connecticut native to UK, but Levis’ scrambling ability was still a significant part of the offense for most of his first year as starter.

In 13 games, Levis rushed for 376 yards and nine touchdowns. Through 10 games this season, Levis has rushed for negative-123 yards. Even if you remove the sack yardage from that total, Levis has run for just 90 yards and two touchdowns on 29 carries.

Levis tallied 18 runs of at least 10 yards last season. This year, he has one. Levis rushed for at least 30 yards in a game five times as a junior. As a senior, he has rushed for a positive total just twice in 10 games and never for more than 7 yards.

Many of Levis’ biggest runs in his first year at Kentucky came when he hurdled a defender or lowered his shoulder to power through a tackle. Scangarello made it an offseason point of emphasis to coach Levis, widely projected as a first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, on how to protect his body better and be more sensible about when to take risks.

The lack of a proven backup — no other Kentucky quarterback had attempted a pass in a game before the start of the season — only increased the importance of Levis staying healthy.

“There’s a fine line between being a baller and being reckless,” Scangarello said in March during spring practice. “When your organization, your university, your teammates, people are counting on you, there’s a good balance of impulse control. … To me, his physicality is one of his blessings, but it’s also something if he doesn’t manage it can lead to negatives, too.”

Scanagarello reiterated that challenge on the first day of preseason camp at UK’s media day, but Kentucky’s offensive coordinator did acknowledge there might be times when the risk of Levis running was worth the possible reward.

When the season actually started, designed runs for Levis were almost completely absent from the game plan. As Levis worked to become a more efficient pocket passer, the number of times he would scramble on designed passing plays also decreased.

After the only designed run for Levis in the season-opening win over Miami (Ohio) was a quarterback sneak to convert a third-and-1 play, Scangarello said he had made “a conscious decision to not run your quarterback, any quarterback run.” At the time, that decision was seen as part of Scangarello’s strategy to hold back much of his offensive scheme in advance of a pivotal week two game at Florida.

But even as a rebuilt offensive line struggled to protect Levis in the ensuing games, the quarterback run game remained largely absent from Kentucky’s game plan.

“The guy could run for 1,000 yards if we wanted him to, but I don’t want to break the man,” Scangarello said on Sept. 6. “He’s too valuable, and he’s a pro-style quarterback and he can do a lot of things. We’re going to be gentle with him. That’s just not my background and what I want to do with a guy like Will.”

Asked about areas where Levis could improve after a Sept. 20 practice, Scangarello pointed to sloppy footwork on occasion before returning to his directive to be more cautious on runs.

“He wants to play every play like it’s his last, which I love unless it’s your quarterback,” Scangarello said. “You want him to not take a shot on his throwing shoulder when he’s scrambling. You want him to not hurdle a guy from the 7-yard line trying to score. Those are the things that if he can just protect himself on three or four plays a game where he’s exposing himself, the way I explained it to him is do that over a 15-year career and add up the hits. It will change your life.”

One of the few designed quarterback runs in non-sneak situations came on a fourth-quarter drive at Ole Miss when Levis made the correct read to keep the ball himself on a third-and-2 play at the Rebels’ 19-yard line. Levis appeared to gain enough yards for a first down but lost the ball after being stood up by one defender and hit by another.

Three days later, Scangarello again promised Kentucky had quarterback run plays in the plan each week when asked by a reporter, but while his status had not been announced publicly yet by that point Levis had already been sidelined from practice by the turf toe he suffered in Oxford. He missed Kentucky’s next game, a loss to South Carolina.

When Levis returned to the field to help lead Kentucky to a win over Mississippi State, it looked like the quarterback draw finally returned but at a strange moment in the red zone just before halftime, forcing Kentucky to burn its final timeout and settle for a third-down field goal attempt. After the game, Scangarello confirmed the play was not actually a designed draw. It was Levis improvising when he did not get the defensive look needed for the actual play call.

Later in the Mississippi State game, Levis suffered another injury — this one to his non-throwing shoulder — when he was hit while making a pass. The only designed run for Levis since came on a fourth-down quarterback sneak at Tennessee. He scrambled once against Missouri and twice against Vanderbilt for 10 total yards.

When Scangarello revealed after the Missouri win Levis was still limited in practice due to injuries, Levis estimated he was operating at around 75%.

“I think it’s just with my mobility mostly,” Levis said. “That’s the one thing I feel like has kind of been affected.”

Levis has thrown for fewer than 200 yards in Kentucky’s last three games. That happened eight times last season, but in those games Levis was often still a dangerous weapon with his legs.

It should be noted that Kentucky’s only consistent receiving option last year was Wan’Dale Robinson, and therefore the decision on whether Levis should scramble or not was much easier if Robinson, usually his first read, was not open. Scangarello designed his offense to have Levis stay in the pocket and progress through multiple reads thanks to Kentucky’s much deeper receiving room this season.

But long gone was the time where Levis could boost 149 passing yards against Louisville last season with 113 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns.

“I don’t think we would have just said we’re not using it at all,” Stoops said after Saturday’s loss to Vanderbilt when asked about Scangarello’s hesitance to use designed quarterback runs. “I don’t think anybody ever said that, you know what I mean? Maybe not as much or wasn’t in his system, but, no, I think he would tell you that there were some times when we would sure like to have that if (Levis) was at full strength and all that.”

Stoops reported on his Monday radio show that Levis was making progress in his quest to return to full strength. A healthier Levis could lead to more scrambling opportunities, but the need to protect his body in advance of the draft has only become more pronounced with Kentucky only playing now for pride and a better mid-tier bowl.

A year ago, Coen appeared to embrace the quarterback run game more as the season progressed. Levis recorded double-digit runs just once in the first five games and then five times in the last eight games. Maybe Scangarello would have experienced a similar progression in his game planning had Levis stayed healthy this season.

With Kentucky failing to score more than 21 points in any SEC game, scrutiny is high for Scangarello’s offense. No. 1 Georgia has shut down even productive offenses this season, but Saturday’s matchup with the Bulldogs and the regular-season finale against archrival Louisville offer a chance for Scangarello to make changes in hopes of a better result.

Whether those changes include more quarterback runs will probably depend on Levis’ health.

“That wasn’t the mindset at all going into the season, but even on third down, the scrambling opportunities when I’m able to use my legs, it obviously is affected after I have something affecting my legs,” Levis said after the Vanderbilt loss. “We didn’t do too, too much of it last year, but obviously it did work when we did. It’s frustrating that I’m not able to show off that side of my game as much, but I do have the ability to use my legs somewhat. I think I can do it more.”

Next game

No. 1 Georgia at Kentucky

When: 3:30 p.m. Saturday

TV: CBS-27

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Georgia 10-0 (7-0 SEC), Kentucky 6-4 (3-4)

Series: Georgia leads 61-12-2 Last meeting: Georgia won 30-13 on Oct. 16, 2021, in Athens, Ga.

This story was originally published November 15, 2022 at 7:56 AM.

Jon Hale

Lexington Herald-Leader

(859) 414-6776

Jon Hale is the University of Kentucky football beat writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the Herald-Leader in 2022 but has covered UK athletics for more than 10 years. Hale was named the 2021 Kentucky Sportswriter of the Year. Support my work with a digital subscription