Who is Travis Wilson?

QB 1: 22 completions on 44 attempts, 288 yards, 2 Touchdowns, 6 interceptions

QB 2: 23 completions on 34 attempts, 234 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception

These are the stat lines from two very different quarterbacks. One is Travis Wilson the 19 year old who makes questionable decisions, and loses a close game to the UCLA Bruins on a red zone interception. The second is Travis Wilson the leader and game manager of the Utah Utes who beat the then ranked #5 Stanford Cardinals.

Which one is the real Travis Wilson?

Travis Wilson started his Utah career when Jordan Wynn went down with a career-ending shoulder injury. In came a 6 foot 7 true freshman from San Clemente High School in California. In high school he was one of the top 20 quarterback recruits in the country. He started 7 games for the Utes in the 2012-2013 season going 3-4. That season Wilson had a quarterback ranking of 122, and completed 63% of his passes.

This year Wilson has looked great at times. Take the stat line for QB 2 and it looks like we have a leader who when a senior should cause a lot of damage to the PAC-12. During the game against Stanford, Wilson had a quarterback rating of 139. The next two games he suffered with an injury to his throwing hand, and played limited minutes attempting very few passes. Through the first 8 games this year, Wilson has completed 58% of his passes but has improved his quarterback rating to 133 from last years 122. If you remove the last two games though, he has a stellar quarterback rating of 154. A 154 rating would put Wilson in between Aaron Murray (Georgia) and James Franklin (Missouri) and 19th in the nation overall.

So what do all of these statistics mean for the initial question of who is Travis Wilson? It means for those of you who are giving up on Travis Wilson already, don’t give up just yet. Aside from an injury, the Utes have a top 20 quarterback in the country, as a true sophomore, who has NFL size and is improving. So, although there have been moments in which you might ask yourself is this the quarterback that will take the Utes back to the BCS bowl games and conference championships, or is there someone else that could do better? When you get down to the numbers, there is no reason to doubt that Travis Wilson is the guy to get the job done. Expect big things from him in the next two years.