Destin Wade "Manned Up" in Difficult Situation

by:Nick Roush•12/31/22•

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Destin Wade could not play the role of hero in his hometown. Even after he threw a pair of touchdowns to the other team, Mark Stoops was proud of the way his quarterback embraced a difficult task against Iowa in the Music City Bowl.

“We came in here to compete to win, but I also wanted to let Destin play,” Mark Stoops said following the 21-0 loss. “I wanted to see the future and what it looks like and give him an opportunity to go out there and play ball within the confines of our offensive system. Down a coordinator, he was put in a tough situation. He will learn from it, without a doubt, and we look forward to that and his growth.”

Wade completed his first two passes to move the chains on Kentucky’s opening possession. The moment did not look too big for the Nashville native.

“I didn’t really have any nerves,” said Destin Wade. “It felt like home basically because I’ve been in that stadium before. I just felt cool, calm and collected.”

The Wildcats had a few early first downs, but momentum stalled when Wade let one pass across the middle sail high, resulting in a pick six. He threw another one at the end of the half, an interception Stoops takes credit for. “I won’t put that on Destin. I probably should have ran the ball there and got out of the half.”

Iowa entered the game ranked second nationally in defensive efficiency. They were ranked in the top ten in almost every major defensive statistical category. Without Chris Rodriguez, the Cats could not even lean on the run game. Kentucky asked Wade to throw it 30 times and run it 16 times.

“We felt like we had to spread it out a bit,” said Stoops. “We weren’t quite the same team we were a year ago. They are still very physical, tough up front. Getting in big sets and playing smash-mouth with them was going to be a tough spot. Certainly there’s things we can do a lot better, put him in a better position to be successful.”

Destin Wade finished the night with 127 of Kentucky’s 185 yards of total offense (68.6%). He completed 16-of-30 passes for 98 yards and had 56 non-sack rushing yards. The stats do not pop off the page. Heck, most will even single-handedly blame his mistakes for the loss. However, Mark Stoops is proud of the way the true freshman remain composed despite the seemingly impossible circumstances.

“I saw a young man that has a bright future. Destin was put in a tough situation today. There will be a lot of arm-chair quarterbacks that sit back and want to critique this guy, but I tell you right now, let ’em go back there and play against that defense and see how easy that is. It’s a tough road to home. Believe me, we knew that going into it,” said Stoops.

“It’s a tough spot, but he manned up, did some good things. We needed to play well around him. We talked about it all week. It’s not just on the quarterback or any one player. We needed to do some good things around him and I think there was certain areas where we fell short. It’s not a time to point fingers, we all accept it and we know we’re going to grow from this and he will grow from this.”