In final college season, Beau Allen has unexpected but key role for Kentucky
It would have been impossible to predict how Beau Allen’s college career would go when he signed with Kentucky as a much-hyped four-star quarterback in December 2019.
Even if there had been some way to know about the looming pandemic and the years-long effect it would have on college football rosters due to what amounted to a mulligan on players’ eligibility clock, it still would have been silly to predict Allen would be on the Kentucky roster six seasons later. Even Allen would not have predicted that outcome a year ago.
“I’ve had people who, last time I talked to them, I told them I wasn’t playing football (in 2025),” Allen told the Herald-Leader as he prepares for his final college season. “Then they see me with the jersey on at practice. Like, ‘What?’”
Allen played in two games during the pandemic-altered 2020 season, his first at UK after graduating from Lexington Catholic. He spent 2021 as the backup to future NFL draft first-round pick Will Levis then elected to transfer to a smaller program to see the field when Levis returned for the 2022 season.
He started 11 games for FCS Tarleton State in 2022, throwing for 2,836 yards, 23 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. That performance was enough to earn him interest from FBS football programs again. He transferred to Georgia Southern in 2023 but was among the final group of players to be denied the ability to play immediately at his new school because he was transferring for a second time. The NCAA has since abandoned all efforts to prevent immediate eligibility for transfers.
After watching from the sideline at Georgia Southern in 2023, Allen returned to UK last year, this time as a walk-on backup quarterback. Even as UK’s offense struggled with starter Brock Vandagriff and backup Gavin Wimsatt at quarterback, Allen remained fourth on the depth chart. As freshman Cutter Boley impressed in a late-season cameo, buzz around the program intensified that Allen was preparing to forgo the final season of eligibility permitted him due to the altered 2020 pandemic season.
But with Vandagriff retiring and Wimsatt transferring, Kentucky needed more quarterback depth. The staff would eventually sign Incarnate Word transfer Zach Calzada as its projected starter, but if Allen had quit, Boley would have been the only quarterback on the roster with any experience in UK’s offense.
“We really needed him,” UK coach Mark Stoops said. “We feel really good about the quarterback room, but it’s really nice to have him there. And I don’t mean to diminish that at all.
“It’s just, you know what you’re getting with Beau. He’s so bright. He’s such a team guy. He works hard.”
Allen opens preseason camp as Kentucky’s third-string quarterback, behind Calzada and Boley. During two open practices over the weekend, he took almost all the third-team reps, allowing Calzada and Boley the extra work they needed with the first- and second-team offenses while freshmen Brennen Ward and Stone Saunders can have time to develop during a likely redshirt season.
“He can mentally bank reps and come in and function and run the offense,” Stoops said. “It’s important to have that.”
Stoops described Allen as a hybrid player-coach during his pre-camp news conference. Boley said he has already benefited from Allen’s knowledge and guidance since arriving on campus last year.
“Knows exactly what it’s supposed to look like,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said of Allen. “Certainly for us offensively, there’s not a player on the roster that represents who we want to be as a football club more than him.”
But Allen is more than a token veteran.
It has been rare for Kentucky to make it through a season with the same starting quarterback for all 12 games during Stoops’ tenure.
Last year, three different quarterbacks played significant snaps for the Wildcats. Stoops and company have seen the worst-case scenario play out before when in 2019 so many quarterbacks were hurt the staff moved wide receiver Lynn Bowden behind center.
“I absolutely still need to be the best player I can be,” Allen said. “And in doing so, I think that I can teach through that aspect as well, with my preparation. … I think it kind of works hand in hand together.”
Perhaps if both Calzada and Boley were sidelined by significant injuries, Stoops and Hamdan would elect to start Ward, currently the more advanced of the two freshmen, due to his higher ceiling. But if the rebuilt offensive line and run game can perform, the better option might be Allen and his experience.
That would be quite the final wrinkle in what has been an unpredictable career.
“I’m the best player and the best person when I’m having the most fun, and that’s a big thing for me,” Allen said. “... Whatever that may be, if that’s in practice, or if that’s helping somebody out, I’ll do it. Just be the best player and to be the best teammate I can be and hopefully everything else can work itself out.”