Will Levis, a former Penn State QB who has been Kentucky’s starter for the past two seasons, is declaring for the NFL Draft, he told UK Blue Chips.
Kentucky QB Will Levis told @UKBlueChips that he is declaring for the 2023 NFL Draft.
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 1, 2022
Levis, a former Penn State QB, is thought by many to be a first-round pick and among the first quarterbacks taken in the 2023 NFL Draft.
In two seasons at Kentucky, he’s thrown 43 touchdown passes, 23 interceptions and completed more than 65 percent of his passes.
Levis has a 17-7 record as Kentucky’s starter. Last season, the team went 10-3 and beat Iowa in the Citrus Bowl. This year, Kentucky finished the regular season 7-5 and awaits when, where and who it will play in its bowl game. Before Kentucky, Levis played at Penn State from 2018-20. He got playing time in his last two seasons, even starting a game in each year, against Rutgers in 2019 and Iowa in ‘20, both at Beaver Stadium.
Although Sean Clifford was Penn State’s starter in 2020, Levis appeared in eight of Penn State’s nine games, being used often as a runner. From 2019-20, Levis rushed for a combined 473 yards, a number that wasn’t far behind his 644 passing yards.
Mock Drafts everywhere have Levis going in the first round, and plenty see him as a top-five pick.
He fell out of the top five in CBS Sports’ Ryan Wilson’s latest mock, but is still in the top 10, going at No. 9 to the Indianapolis Colts. Wilson wrote that the 6-foot-3, 232-pound Levis “looks the part,” but “has been plagued by injuries and poor play all season.”
Levis missed Kentucky’s Oct. 8 game against South Carolina due to turf toe, and he finished 2022 with lower numbers in completion percentage, yards and touchdown passes than he had in 2021.
“That said,” Wilson wrote, “NFL teams love how he projects to the next level. But he’ll be a controversial talking point for the next six months.”
