Former Auburn, Kentucky quarterback Joey Gatewood switching positions

Joey Gatewood has had a collegiate career featuring numerous twists and turns throughout. After beginning his career with high hopes at Auburn, Gatewood transferred to Kentucky. Afterwards, he re-joined Gus Malzahn, following his former coach to UCF last season.

Now, Gatewood’s career is taking another turn in a different direction. Malzahn explained Gatewood is moving from quarterback to wide receiver on Tuesday.

“Gatewood — Joey’s a guy that moved to receiver last week,” revealed Malzahn. “He’s got a real chance. So, I’m excited to see his development with that. The good thing is, we got a lot of different guys to give us some depth.

Moreover, Gatewood was expected to become a great college quarterback. A four-star recruit out of Jacksonville, Florida, according to On3 Consensus, he was the fourth ranked quarterback in the 2018 recruiting class. However, his ability never translated into success at the position at either of his stop.

At Auburn, Gatewood completed five of eight passes for 54 yards and two touchdowns over two seasons. Then, Gatewood completed 17 of 35 passes for 109 yards and one interception in his time at Kentucky. Finally, Gatewood only threw eight passes for UCF last season, completing two for 17 yards and a touchdown.

The former quarterback was always more effective on the ground, rushing for 380 yards and four touchdowns on 85 attempts over four seasons. Now, he’ll be at a position where his athleticism will be more important than ever.

Time will tell how the move works out for Joey Gatewood. However, the quarterback turned wide receiver is more than used to change at this point.

More on Joey Gatewood, UCF Knights

Last season, Joey Gatewood joined UCF with Gus Malzahn. In their first season with the program, the Knights went 9-4 on the season, and 5-3 in their conference. Now, the duo is looking to improve on that for UCF.

In the past, UCF has experienced great success, even defeating Malzahn’s Auburn team in the 2018 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. Gatewood arrived on campus after that game, but the win meant the world to the Knights. Now, Malzahn and Gatewood are hoping to bring UCF back to the heights they reached in the past — unfortunately, against the former’s squad.

As Gatewood attempts to make his name known at wide receiver, he’s learning from a new voice — freshly-hired wide receivers coach, Grant Heard. Since 2017, Heard has been the wide receivers coach at Indiana, but he’s bringing his talents to Florida to work with Malzahn.

As you can see, there’s plenty changing for Gus Malzahn and Joey Gatewood. Nevertheless, the duo will look for their best season together yet in 2022.