Mark Stoops hopes to see young quarterbacks play in Gator Bowl

The Kentucky Wildcats are just days away from taking on the North Carolina State Wolfpack in the 2020 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida.

As expected, UK head coach Mark Stoops named senior Terry Wilson as the starting quarterback for the bowl game. However, Stoops did not rule out the possibility of getting his younger signal-callers in Beau Allen and Joey Gatewood some action.

“We’ll see how it goes. Terry (Wilson) is our starter,” Stoops said in his Zoom press conference Monday. “I wanted to use this opportunity to continue to develop our young guys so I sure would like to play them. I talked about that with the quarterbacks and with Terry but I want to win the game too and if Terry is really playing well then we’ll ride it out and we’ll see how it goes. I know our other guys are preparing extremely hard as well.”

Both Allen and Gatewood have seen playing time this year in either mop-up role duties and in Gatewood’s case, as a starter filling in for Wilson.

Allen, a true freshman from Lexington, has completed 3/7 of his passes for 40 yards in two games this season.

Gatewood is a redshirt sophomore in his first year with UK after starting his college career at Auburn. He has completed 17/35 of his passes for 109 yards and an interception while rushing for 62 yards on 25 attempts in six games and one start.

The two quarterbacks are expected to battle for the starting job next summer when newly hired offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Liam Coen arrives on campus.