Mark Stoops evaluates play of Destin Wade in Music City Bowl

Freshman quarterback Destin Wade got the first start of his collegiate career for Kentucky on Saturday when the Wildcats took on Iowa in the Music City Bowl. Kentucky ended up losing 21-0, with disappointing results from the offense. But Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops saw some promising things from his young signal-caller.

Wade completed 16 of his 30 pass attempts in the loss, throwing for just 98 yards with zero touchdowns. He also tossed two interceptions, both of which were returned for Iowa touchdowns.

But despite the lackluster stat line, Stoops is still a big fan of Wade and sees great things ahead in his future.

“I saw a young man that has a bright future,” Stoops said of Wade. “Destin was put in a tough situation today. So there will be a lot of armchair quarterbacks that will want to critique this guy, but I’ll tell you right now, let them go back there and play against that defense and see how that is. It’s a tough road to hone. Believe me, we knew that going into it. That’s a tough spot.

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

Stoops reveals why Wade started for Kentucky

Entering the weekend, Wade was listed alongside Kaiya Sheron and Deuce Hogan on Kentucky’s depth chart. The three quarterbacks were separated only by an ‘OR,’ but ultimately Wade got the nod. Hogan also saw action, completing six of his seven pass attempts for 19 yards.

In the end, Wade was able to create belief during bowl prep and that’s why he got the nod. And he’s only getting started.

“I think just the belief,” Stoops said on what separated Wade from the other quarterbacks. “I think everyone had a strong belief in him and his ability to make plays. This is just his first game. You can imagine with more games under his belt, how comfortable he’ll be out there just moving around in that pocket. Knowing when to step up, knowing when to escape, knowing when to throw the ball away. It’s hard, it’s a tough position to play. You’re going to get better with every rep and every opportunity. That’s part of the difficulty with young quarterbacks and quarterbacks in general. You see it all the time.

“They need the reps. But they all do. So if you have three good quarterbacks, they can’t get enough reps in practice, especially in full tilt in a scrimmage-like situation. It’s really tough until you get in there and do that. We wanted to see him do that and he really did some good things. Yeah, there’s a couple plays, a couple of those picks that he and I would like to have over. But he’s going to learn from that. And again, it was a really difficult situation to go into no matter who was playing quarterback today. Even Will with all of the experience he has, we know it would be tough with that defense.”