Reese Phillips leaving Kentucky Wildcats Football

The Kentucky Wildcats have now lost two of their top three quarterbacks from this past season.

After Junior Patrick Towles left via a graduate transfer earlier this month, redshirt sophomore Reese Phillips is now also leaving UK, via Justin Rowland of Cats Illustrated. That leaves redshirt freshman Drew Barker now as the only scholarship quarterback on UK's campus as of now.

The good news is three-star recruit Gunnar Hoak will be joining the Cats soon as an early enrollee that will give him a great chance to win the backup QB spot during spring football. Barker will be a sophomore next year and is the future of this position for the Cats, but especially in the physical SEC, having a capable backup QB is a must.

Rowland also offered this on walk-on QB Davis Mattingly has looked good, but UK will likely look to add another signal caller this spring:

Walk-on quarterback Davis Mattingly has been praised by some Cats Illustrated sources, and there's a strong possibility that Kentucky's coaches could move to bring on another scholarship quarterback. That becomes a virtual necessity with Phillips' decision and Towles' departure, and the fact that Kentucky will be bringing in a new offensive coordinator makes it more likely that the staff will improve the depth chart at the position.

Phillips came to UK in 2013 as a three-star recruit out of Signal Mountain high School (TN). He redshirted that year before competing for the starting job in 2014 before Towles won it. Then Phillips missed a good chunk of this past season after he tore his Achilles in spring workouts. That helped lead to him falling behind Drew Barker for the No. 2 spot behind Towles. Phillips was the backup in 2014 while attempting just nine passes.