INDIANAPOLIS — After an injury-plagued senior season for Kentucky football, quarterback Will Levis is finally close to 100%.
And he is eager to show NFL teams the difference in passing drills at the scouting combine this week.
“I’ve got a cannon, and I want to show it off,” Levis said Friday when asked why he was throwing at the combine when some top quarterbacks have skipped that part of the event in the past.
Levis entered the 2022 college season hyped as a likely first-round draft pick, but Kentucky’s offense still struggled for most of a disappointing 7-6 season. A porous offensive line was a primary contributor to the struggles, but so was Levis’ health.
In an October game at Ole Miss, Levis suffered a foot injury later confirmed to be turf toe. The injury sidelined him for one regular-season game, but even after returning to the field Levis was playing through pain.
“Last year (in 2021), I was definitely a bigger part of the run game,” Levis said. “Like, almost 400 rushing yards, a bunch of rushing touchdowns. That’s because I was involved. We were running QB-power, we were running QB-draw. I was taking off and scrambling a little more.
“That really — even before I got hurt — wasn’t as big a part of the game plan this year. But obviously when I did get hurt, those got limited. Nothing from a drop-back or a play-action standpoint changed really. Just my ability for them to call designed runs for me.”
Levis called the decision to deemphasize his running ability a difference in style and philosophy between Liam Coen, Kentucky’s offensive coordinator in 2021, and Rich Scangarello, the Wildcats’ coordinator in 2022. Both Coen and Scangarello came to Lexington from the NFL from the same offensive system, but Coen came from Sean McVay’s side of the coaching tree and Scangarello came from Kyle Shanahan’s version of the offense.
Scangarello was fired after just one season at Kentucky. He eventually was replaced by Coen, who returned to Lexington after one season as the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator.
It is impossible to know if a healthy Levis would have helped the offense perform well enough to save Scangarello’s job, but Levis also injured his non-throwing shoulder on a hit in the game in which he returned from turf toe.
“I think like this past year the season didn’t go as well as we would have wanted it to, but, I mean, I learned a lot from it,” Levis said. “I learned how to battle through adversity. Dealt with a lot of things, physically, just situationally, that were tough. I think I became a better player, better quarterback because of it.”
Levis opted out of the Music City Bowl to gain the rest time needed to fully recover from his injuries. That rehabilitation process also kept him from the Senior Bowl.
Now, Levis is ready to show off his recent work. He has focused on improving his core strength and footwork in an effort to improve his accuracy.
“Coming off a couple tough injuries this past season, really spent the first handful of weeks really doing treatment,” Levis said. “Just finally in a spot as of three, four weeks ago that I’m really feeling good about my body, that I can go and use my athleticism to my advantage, kind of like I wasn’t able to the second half of the season this past year.”
