UK football recruiters facing a battle royale for fast-rising, in-state quarterback
When Vince Marrow called Gavin Wimsatt early last month to offer the class of 2022 quarterback a scholarship to play football for Kentucky, it was a singular thrill for the Owensboro High School star.
“Kentucky was my first Power Five (conference) offer,” Wimsatt says.
What Wimsatt did not know when he took the call from UK’s recruiting ace is that the offer from Kentucky was going to set off what Owensboro Coach Jay Fallin calls “an avalanche” of scholarship offers from other major-conference programs.
Since UK’s offer, Louisville and Virginia Tech from the ACC; Missouri and Vanderbilt from the SEC; plus West Virginia and TCU of the Big 12 have also offered the 6-foot-4, 205-pound dual-threat QB. So has American Athletic Conference power Cincinnati.
“I didn’t think I was going to blow up this early. I didn’t think I was going to get this many offers,” Wimsatt said last week. “I felt like I would get offers, but not this many this early.”
In Kentucky Wildcats football history, many of the best quarterbacks — Rick Norton (Louisville), Bill Ransdell (Elizabethtown), Tim Couch (Hyden), Jared Lorenzen (Fort Thomas) and Andre Woodson (Radcliff), to name five — have been homegrown.
However, UK just completed a decade in which in-state quarterbacks played a minimal role.
In the second decade (2010-2019) of the 21st century, homegrown QBs started only 27 of 125 Cats’ games. Fort Thomas product Patrick Towles (22 career starts from 2012-15) and Burlington’s Drew Barker (five starts from 2014-2017) accounted for those few starts.
Conversely, during the first decade (2000-2009) of this century, an in-state QB started 94 of UK’s 120 football games. Lorenzen (41 starts from 2000-2003), Woodson (38 starts from 2004-07) and Lexington product Shane Boyd (15 starts from 2001-04) logged the bountiful number of starts.
With its pursuit of Wimsatt, UK is now seeking to land an in-state QB in a third straight recruiting class.
The Wildcats signed polished pocket passer Beau Allen of Lexington Catholic for 2020. UK holds a verbal commitment for the class of 2021 from Somerset QB Kaiya Sheron, whose last-second touchdown pass gave the Briar Jumpers the 2019 2A state championship.
Fallin, the Owensboro coach, believes it was a game in Lexington in last season’s 5A playoff semifinals that put Wimsatt front and center for college recruiters.
Against a Frederick Douglass roster stacked with Division I college prospects, Wimsatt threw for 169 yards and two touchdowns in Owensboro’s fiercely contested 28-17 loss to Douglass.
“That was a big game on a big stage, and I really think that is when he started turning heads and opening some eyes of the college coaches,” Fallin says. “UK had been interested in him even before that, but I really think (that game) intensified the recruitment with UK.”
While directing Owensboro to a 12-2 season in his first year as a varsity starting QB, Wimsatt threw for 2,729 yards and 31 touchdowns with only 10 interceptions.
His completion percentage, 54.7, was so-so, although some of that may be due to Wimsatt’s preference for throwing post patterns and go routes. “I like throwing the long ball,” he says.
On the ground, Wimsatt ran 87 times for 564 yards and 12 TDs. In a tight 22-16 win over rival Henderson County, he carried 16 times for 149 yards and three scores.
For the coming season, Fallin says he envisions “more designed runs and more opportunities for (Wimsatt) to get out and run the ball. Last year, because Gavin was young, we sort of held the reins on him in the running game because we didn’t want him to get out and take a bunch of unnecessary hits.”
A three-sport athlete, Wimsatt averaged 12.2 points and 6.2 rebounds for Owensboro’s 3rd Region runner-up team in basketball. In track and field, the hurdles and the high jump are his specialties.
As for football recruiting, the coronavirus and the efforts to contain it knocked Wimsatt off the summer football camp circuit and have curtailed his ability to make unofficial visits to college campuses.
He did, however, get in an early trip to UK in January. “The whole (Kentucky) coaching staff is easy to talk to,” Wimsatt says. “I like talking to them.”
His immediate focus, Wimsatt says, is trying to lead a talented Owensboro roster to the 2020 Kentucky Class 5A state championship (assuming COVID-19 can be contained sufficiently to allow for football to be played).
In the ideal scenario, Wimsatt hopes to commit to a college in the summer before his high school senior year or, failing that, shortly after his final high school season.
With Gavin Wimsatt’s proliferating offer sheet, UK is going to have to prevail in a college football recruiting battle royale to add an in-state quarterback in a third straight signing class.
