‘I thought he was a tight end.’ Wildcats’ first impressions of Will Levis set expectations.

The season of Will Levis starts Saturday when Kentucky football faces Miami (Ohio) in its 2022 opener.

But before Levis blossomed into a projected first-round NFL Draft prospect and dark horse Heisman Trophy candidate, he had to first win over his Kentucky football teammates as a transfer from Penn State. While Levis was the hand-picked quarterback of Kentucky offensive coordinator Liam Coen he had yet to prove himself as an SEC-level starter when he arrived in Lexington.

Kentucky coaches needed just more than a week of preseason practice last year to declare Levis the starter, but his teammates needed even less time to realize the Connecticut native could be key in leading the Wildcats to another level.

“When he walks in the room, everybody listens,” redshirt freshman quarterback Kaiya Sheron said. “He’s got that personality that everybody wants to follow. He’s a really good leader.”

In three seasons at Penn State, Levis threw for 644 yards and rushed for 473 yards in 15 games with one start. Feeling Penn State coaches had unfairly pigeonholed him as a run-first quarterback, Levis entered the transfer portal in search of an offensive staff that believed in his ability to make plays with his arm as well.

Coen, who had briefly recruited Levis to FCS Maine out of high school, saw that potential. Levis’s new teammates quickly realized he had the arm strength to return balance to a UK offense that had become overly reliant on the run.

But when surveyed about their first impressions of Levis after he arrived in Lexington, UK players consistently returned to a different theme.

“My first impression was just how big he is,” said freshman wide receiver Dane Key, who was a frequent visitor to UK’s facilities as a recruit during Levis’s first season as a Wildcat. “He’s huge. To be a quarterback and be that built, it just shocked me.”

“He looks like he’s supposed to be an outside linebacker,” super senior linebacker Jordan Wright said.

“The first time I saw Will I thought he was a tight end,” senior offensive guard Kenneth Horsey said. “... That’s the quarterback? I was like, OK man.”

More than marketing

The legend of Levis was sparked by viral highlight videos of deep throws from his knees and a lightning quick release. It grew when he became a social media sensation thanks to a TikTok video of him eating a banana with the peel still on and another of him adding mayo to his coffee.

Meanwhile in practice, Levis was establishing a reputation for more than a marketable personality.

“We were running walkthroughs. We didn’t even have a ball, but Will was so commanding of the huddle,” Horsey said. “He hadn’t even been there that long, but he demanded the respect of the room. We rallied behind that. That was one of the first moments I was like, OK, this dude is no joke.”

Defensive players are barred from hitting quarterbacks in practice, so early scrimmages are usually met with a level of healthy skepticism from that side of the ball.

Every defender wonders if he could have prevented the completion with a more realistic pass rush. Did the quarterback legitimately elude the pressure or were coaches reluctant to blow a play dead that would have ended up as a sack in an actual game?

So when Levis scrambled away from defenders in preseason camp a year ago, Wright was not yet convinced.

“Then when he threw the first deep ball to Wan’Dale (Robinson), I said, yeah, a lot of teams are in trouble,” Wright said. “We weren’t really good at the quarterback position throwing the ball deep. We used to run a lot, so just having that versatility back there was special.”

Senior tight end Brenden Bates needs no reminder of how hard Levis can throw a ball. He has been on the end of plenty of those bullet passes.

He is perfectly familiar with Levis’s ability to scramble from the pocket, leap over a defender and power for an extra yard. He is frequently paving the way for those highlight reel runs with a block.

But neither quality most impressed him about Kentucky’s new quarterback as Levis was working to establish himself as the starter.

“He’s obviously very gifted, but what makes him so much better than a lot of quarterbacks is not just his athleticism, not just his intelligence,” Bates said. “It’s because the dude has an insane work mentality. I remember he came in and was always asking to throw. He was always doing extra stuff.”

Earning respect

To ensure he won over the locker room as well as the starting job, Levis insisted he not be anointed the savior just because he was the new transfer. Incumbent quarterbacks Beau Allen and Joey Gatewood had a head start on learning Coen’s offense since they had participated in spring practice while Levis was finishing his degree at Penn State.

A year later, both Gatewood and Allen have transferred to other programs with Levis entrenched as the starter, but there was no guarantee the competition would play out that way when Levis moved to Lexington.

“Walking into a building and having to learn 100-plus names and faces, that was harder than learning the playbook,” Levis said. “You’ve got to earn the respect of everyone on the team. I tried to just carry myself in a way that I lead by example and tried to earn the spot. Doing everything I could do.

“When I was named the starter the second week of camp, that was one of the cooler things to me because it proved to me that I did everything right in that offseason, that I’d earned the respect of everybody.”

Stoops elected to name Levis the starter as soon as it became apparent he was the best option in part to let Gatewood transfer to another program where he could possibly see more playing time before the fall semester started. That decision was quickly validated as Levis threw for 367 yards and four touchdowns in his Kentucky debut.

His first season as the starter was not perfect — his 13 interceptions were tied for most in the SEC — but he improved as the season progressed. In the regular-season finale, he tied a school record with four rushing touchdowns in a blowout of archrival Louisville. In the Citrus Bowl versus Iowa, he led Kentucky on an eight-play, 80-yard game-winning touchdown drive with 3:31 remaining.

Those performances spurred an offseason of growing hype fueled by mock drafts and Heisman Trophy watch lists.

No Kentucky quarterback has entered a season with more attention since Tim Couch in 1998. No UK quarterback since Couch has thrown a touchdown pass in the NFL.

Levis has work to do to prove the summer hype is justified, but Kentucky fans need only look back to his early weeks on campus for reasons to believe a special season is coming.

“I felt like all we needed was a really good quarterback to get us over the hump,” super senior linebacker DeAndre Square said. “I saw him and was like, that’s the guy.”

Season opener

Miami (Ohio) at Kentucky

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

TV: SEC Network Plus (online only)

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Series: Kentucky leads 8-4-1

Last meeting: Kentucky won 41-7 on Sept. 7, 2013, in Lexington