Terry Wilson's Complicated Kentucky Legacy

Editor’s Note: The following post was written before Terry Wilson’s final game at Kroger Field. He won his final two games as a Wildcat, completing 29-of-46 (63%) passes for 300 yards and rushing for 60 yards and a touchdown. Wilson became the only quarterback in school history to throw for more than 3,000 yards and rush for more than 1,000 yards. He finished his career with an 18-7 record, with five wins over AP Top 25 teams, following the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl victory over NC State. Monday evening he announced his intentions to enter the transfer portal for his final season of college football. 

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How will Terry Wilson be remembered?

It’s a simple question that will produce a variety of answers from fans as the quarterback prepares to play in his final game at Kroger Field Saturday night against South Carolina. This is how Mark Stoops answered that question earlier this week:

“I think it should be that he did everything he could for this program. He is a young man that helped us win 10 games, there is no taking that away from him,” Stoops said.

“I think he is a guy that laid it all out on the line for his team each and every week. None of us are perfect and that is a hard position to play. He came back from a very serious injury and he gave it everything he had. I greatly appreciate that. There is frustrations at times at every one of our positions and at quarterback, you have a bullseye on you. All eyes are on the quarterback each and every down and I think he has handled that very well and I appreciate that from him.”

The freshest memories are not the best. However, one must remember where the Kentucky football program was when Wilson was recruited to Kentucky.

Wilson’s Start

The Wildcats had just completed consecutive seven-win seasons for the first time in a decade, thanks in large part to Stephen Johnson’s consistent play in crunch time. He played an important role, even though Kentucky’s stars were on defense and in the backfield. Johnson was the bandage that stopped the bleeding at the quarterback position after Drew Barker’s injury. Kentucky would soon need one more of those to save the day.

As Johnson prepared to depart, Kentucky had its quarterback of the future, Jarren Williams. An unheralded recruit when he initially committed in the summer of 2016, he was upgraded to a four-star prospect that fall,  starting a back and forth commitment dance with Vince Marrow. Williams finally broke ties with Kentucky Dec. 6. The Wildcats needed a quarterback just weeks before signing day.

Marrow got Wilson on campus in short order for an official visit and eventually convinced him to commit to UK over Florida’s Dan Mullen and Nebraska’s Scott Frost, two new head coaches who were heralded as great offensive hires, albeit ones that needed a quarterback to play right away.

Kentucky’s 2018 offense now had a dynamic, unproven athlete at quarterback. Wilson was inexperienced, yet talented. Having a solid option at quarterback was the first domino that fell before Josh Allen and Mike Edwards decided to return for a senior season and become all-time greats.

History Made

Wilson’s best game as a Wildcat was his second start at a little old place called The Swamp, a stadium where Kentucky had not won since 1979.  He never flinched, starting with a first half touchdown pass to David Bouvier on a scramble, followed by a run on a toss-sweep option where Wilson cut across the field and down the sideline 24 yards for a score. He averaged more than ten yards per carry to finish with 105 yards rushing.

Eddie Gran did not ask Wilson to do much through the air — completing 11-of-16 passes for 151 yards — except on a third and 16 on the first possession of the second half the second half. The Cats did not play it safe with a draw. Instead, they told Wilson to let it rip. That’s exactly what he did, dropping a dime over Lynn Bowden’s shoulder for a 54-yard touchdown that gave UK a 21-10 lead.

Wilson’s exceptional play complemented Kentucky’s physical attack on the ground that rushed for over 300 yards, leading the Wildcats to their first win over Florida in 31 years. Few Kentucky football fans have ever experienced a greater win and Wilson is a big reason why that happened.

Terry Wilson is a victim of his own success. To play that well that early, of course fans expected Wilson to exponentially improve over the next three years. That might have happened, if not for one horse collar tackle.

Endless Adversity

Nothing ever came easily for Terry Wilson. After managing Kentucky’s offense to a tenth win in the Citrus Bowl, he was given the keys to the car, hyped by the program as the offense’s next star, ready to carry the torch from Benny Snell with the help of Lynn Bowden. Two games into the season, that opportunity was ripped from his fingertips.

It’s impossible to know how much that season-ending knee injury set back Wilson’s development. Nevertheless, he worked relentlessly to recuperate in time to start the 2020 season. Despite his injury and the wrench COVID-19 through into the season, high expectations remained. Those boiled over into frustrations when Kentucky’s pass offense never took off.

Wilson completed 65% of his passes for 239 yards in the season-opener against Auburn. The following week vs. Ole Miss he helped Kentucky score more than 40 points by throwing for 151 yards and rushing for 129 more. The Wildcats have not thrown for more than 150 yards in the seven games since.

What’s gone wrong with Kentucky’s pass offense? “It’s just been an inconsistent (thing),” offensive coordinator Eddie Gran said Tuesday. “Early it was one, two people. It comes down to at the end of the day… you have to be consistent on offense. It starts right here with me. If it’s not right then it’s gotta be fixed. I think that we’ve had guys at the O-line that something’s happened there, then something at running back position, something at the receiver position — it just all hasn’t been put together all the time.”

“He Battled”

Terry Wilson’s Kentucky tenure included the highest of highs and lowest of lows. Consistency was always the problem, but not for a lack of effort.

“Quarterbacks have a lot of pressure,” said Josh Ali, Wilson’s favorite wide receiver. “You know me and Terry talk a lot. I do my best to keep his head up. Terry has a lot he’s fighting for because he has a daughter now. It gets frustrating at times because you know what you want to do and sometimes it doesn’t go right. Terry’s strong. Every week he comes in, he makes changes to the mistakes he had previous weeks and I feel like he’s going to be great in whatever he decides to do. I feel like he’s going to be a great player and I feel like he’s going to have that urge to grow and learn more as time goes on.”

Things did not go the way Terry Wilson planned in 2020. Even so, he was able to help the Wildcats snap one more streak by winning at Tennessee, Kentucky’s first win at Neyland Stadium since 1984. He is the only quarterback in school history to defeat Florida, Tennessee and Louisville, all of which were wins on the road. That alone makes Wilson unforgettable.

“He battled. We’ve been inconsistent. He knows when he’s been in consistent. He’s always battled back and just fought. Won a lot of games for us, I mean you go back and look and he really has. The guy’s been awesome,” said Gran. “The kid battles back and he should be known for a guy that won a bunch of games here and he loves Kentucky.”