The Kentucky Wildcats have named incumbent Patrick Towles their starting quarterback over highly recruited redshirt freshman Drew Barker.
If the Kentucky offense is going to succeed this season, it is going to need to get much better QB play than what Towles produced last season, which included a season-ending six-game losing streak. And to do so, the Wildcats are likely going to need to provide him better pass protection.
Towles’ biggest struggles last season came when he was under pressure, as he ranked No. 78 out of 86 eligible QBs in this area. He was sacked on almost a quarter of his dropbacks. Making matters worse, his receivers dropped 7.6 percent of his passes, 10th-most in the NCAA.
When given a clean pocket, Towles showed solid accuracy (70.1 percent) and threw an accurate deep ball, ranking No. 17 in the country in that metric. So if he can improve his play under pressure, we could see a big improvement from him this season.
If he is unable to handle the pressure, that could open up an opportunity for Barker to see the field.