Will Joey Gatewood See an Increased Role Versus Temple?

After getting a late start to join the UCF Football program, Joey Gatewood appears to be ready for a larger role with the Knights.

Marc Miceli | Oct 28, 2021

Will Joey Gatewood See an Increased Role Versus Temple? /

ORLANDO - The UCF Knights football season saw numerous injuries to key players on both offense and defense. When starting quarterback Dillon Gabriel got injured in the game against Louisville, soon thereafter Mikey Keene was named the starting quarterback for the Knights.

However, Keene has struggled as the starting quarterback, throwing for just 63 yards during UCF's 24-7 victory over Memphis this past Friday. Perhaps backup quarterback Joey Gatewood could take more snaps at quarterback moving forward.

UCF already began to explore different ways to utilize a player with great size and athleticism. In his weekly press conference, UCF Head Football Coach Gus Malzahn said, "Do I like playing two quarterbacks? I don't. But that's what's best for our team."

This comment may mean that we see more of Gatewood this week against Temple. Here is some information about his career and what we might see from him on Saturday.

Joey Gatewood UCF — Joey Gatewood's natural size allows him the ability to plow through tacklers. Now, can he increase his passing game role? / UCF Athletics

Coming out of high school, Gatewood had offers to play football at Texas, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Clemson, and Auburn, to name a few. As a sophomore in high school, Gatewood was compared to former Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, as they both have similar size and ability. At one point, Gatewood called Newton his idol leading up to Super Bowl 50. Gatewood committed to play for Coach Malzahn when he was at the University of Auburn.

The other starting quarterbacks Auburn had while Gatewood was there included Jared Stidham and current quarterback Bo Nix. Auburn decided that the best decision for their team was if they played Stidham and Nix.

Therefore, Gatewood entered the transfer portal and committed to the University of Kentucky in 2020 and made his first collegiate start against the No. 5 ranked team at the time, in the University of Georgia. In that game, Gatewood completed 15 of 25 passes for 91 yards with zero interceptions, and added 23 rushing yards in a 14-3 loss against Georgia.

He also was sacked four times (including 1.5 sacks by current New York Giants linebacker Azeez Ojulari). For the rest of his 2020 season, he saw very little playing time and entered the transfer portal for the second time in 2021, where he committed to play for Coach Malzahn and UCF. This is an opportunity for him to play for the same coach that recruited him coming out of high school. Gabriel was returning as the starter so he was competing for the backup quarterback with true freshman Keene.

Gatewood has not seen much action this season, but last week he completed two passes for 17 yards and a touchdown, He also produced two carries for 11 yards. He could see him used more in the running game, especially considering how successful Cincinnati and USF were able to run the football against Temple’s rush defense.

Temple has given up an exact total of 700 rushing yards to Cincinnati and USC during the past two games. Because of Temple's poor rush defense, implementing designed quarterback runs for Gatewood could open up UCF’s play-action passing.

It will be interesting to see how he is utilized on Saturday, but expect to see some designed runs for Gatewood at the very least.

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