Gavin Wimsatt impresses, another WR to watch and more from UK football Fan Day practice
One day after the NCAA placed the Kentucky football program on probation and vacated the 10 wins from the 2021 season, it was business as usual at the Wildcats’ practice facility.
It would have been impossible to know the penalties agreed upon by the NCAA and UK on Friday for at least 11 players being paid for work they did not perform in jobs at the university hospital in 2021 had been announced judging by players on the practice field and fans in attendance at the program’s annual Fan Day practice Saturday. The penalties do not include a bowl ban or any reduction of scholarships, so the current Wildcats should be unaffected.
With the focus shifting back to the product on the field, here are three observations from the open practice.
UK has more receiving threats than Barion Brown and Dane Key
Predictably much of the attention on UK’s wide receivers this summer has been directed at juniors Barion Brown and Dane Key entering a pivotal season, but the juniors should have help.
North Texas transfer Ja’Mori Maclin, one of 25 players in the country with 1,000 receiving yards last season, has been an early standout, according to teammates and coaches. Maclin missed spring practice while recovering from an injury, but the need to play catchup in developing chemistry with quarterback Brock Vandagriff was not apparent Saturday.
“We have been extremely impressed with his route running ability,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said Friday at media day. “His ability to make guys miss. He is a guy that is just chipping away at it. But he is certainly the next guy we are looking to get the ball to.”
Early in the practice, Maclin wowed with a precise cutback on a route that left a defender off balance and resulted in a completion.
“I feel like (Maclin) is going to help us a lot,” safety Zion Childress said. “He’s a pro.”
Backup quarterback shows promise
Each of Kentucky’s top three quarterbacks (Vandagriff, Gavin Wimsatt and Cutter Boley) provided at least a couple of highlight throws for the fans in attendance.
Vandagriff was steady throughout and Boley showed promise while operating the third-team offense, but it was Wimsatt that might have surprised the most. The Rutgers transfer and Owensboro native completed multiple deep balls to UAB transfer Fred Farrier while running the second-team offense.
It’s still too early to say Wimsatt is a threat to Vandagriff’s starting job, but the throws Saturday at least offered hope he can be more than a running threat. In three years at Rutgers he completed just 46.6% of his passes.
If Wimsatt can provide a more consistent passing threat than he has to date in his college career, that will make him even more dangerous as a change-of-pace quarterback in running packages.
“I think that we are going to utilize him in a lot of those Wildcat-type situations,” Hamdan said Friday. “At the very least, but we know this and you know this at this conference we have the opportunity to acquire talent. He is a big talented player. When you have the opportunity to see him at practice, you will see how dynamic of a player he is. So, a little bit of a wait‑and‑see on how that role goes.”
A new candidate for defensive line depth
Long-term injuries to nose guards Josaih Hayes and Tavion Gadson have left the backup spot behind starting nose guard Keeshawn Silver open for competition. Since Silver will need to be spelled regularly, whoever wins the backup job can expect to play significant snaps.
On Saturday, redshirt freshman Kendrick Gilbert was operating as the backup nose guard.
“He already made some flashes in some of these early practices,” defensive coordinator Brad White said of Gilbert on Friday.
Gilbert’s redshirt season was mostly spent rehabbing a shoulder injury, but he has already changed his body. After being listed at 6-foot-5, 292 pounds as a freshman, the former four-star recruit checked in at 275 pounds for the start of camp.
Junior college transfer Dennious Jackson, a 6-foot-5, 335-pound behemoth who only popped onto UK’s recruiting radar late in the summer, spent Saturday’s practice as the third-team nose guard.
This story was originally published August 3, 2024 at 2:19 PM.