Over the last several months Kentucky football fans have been talking a lot about the players who helped lead the Wildcats to an eight-win season and a Belk Bowl victory. They have also been following the recruitment of plenty of high school prospects from the Class of 2020.

But right now Kentucky has an inordinate amount of talent that falls into neither camp: Players who were either injured for most or all of the 2019 season, and transfers who are just gaining eligibility, working to make their first real impact, or waiting to find out their status for this fall.

Here are a number of breakout and bounce back candidates who did not play for Kentucky last year and who did not count towards the Wildcats' last recruiting class as well as some thoughts on what we can expect from each.

No Kentucky football player is more important this year than Terry Wilson.

He's 12-3 as a starter behind center and has wins against Florida and Penn State, among others, under his belt.

Wilson appeared to make great strides going into his junior season and was improved as a passer in very limited action until a horse-collar tackle by an Eastern Michigan defender ended his campaign.

Kentucky's coaches will be very careful with Wilson in the lead-up to the 2020 season so he might not be ready for football activities until the summer. There is no Lynn Bowden to save the team's season if injuries ravage the quarterback position again this year.

Former Rivals250 recruit and Florida State linebacker Xavier Peters was one of the most popular talking points for Kentucky football fans and media figures last offseason. And why not? The physical specimen was a familiar name to Kentucky fans who follow recruiting, he came from a powerhouse program, and he was, to the surprise of many, ruled immediately eligible for the 2019 season.

In hindsight, perhaps not much should have been expected of Peters. Still a young college football player who was in the midst of a major transition with a lot of life happening, including fatherhood, Peters was only ruled eligible on September 10th, with the season already underway.

Peters only saw action in three games, playing just 24 snaps on defense.

Kentucky returns quite a bit at linebacker and everyone on the edge so there's no obvious opening. But there are routes to potential playing time and if Peters hits his stride he could be tough to keep off the field.

With the move back to a conventional offense, Kentucky is going to need the passing game to take a big step forward in 2020.

Some of that will fall on Josh Ali. Some will be the responsibility of Clevan Thomas, Bryce Oliver, and Allen Dailey.

But Isaiah Epps could have a say in how the offense progresses as well.

Epps was to be a junior, who had never redshirted, during the 2019 season. But his foot fracture was initially said be a six-week rehab process. He never got on the field.

Epps should return and could be in the mix for a starting role.

Davonte Robinson was one of the best players in Kentucky's secondary during the 2018 season and that's saying something, considering he played alongside Mike Edwards, Darius West, Lonnie Johnson, Derrick Baity, and Chris Westry. In fact, according to PFF, Robinson was one of the best players on the entire defense and at times the staff singled him out for praise.

He was to be one of Kentucky's top defensive players in 2019 but for an injury that ended his redshirt junior campaign before it started.

Robinson should return to a starting role in spite of the success of UK's defense in his absence and could be one of the better safeties in the SEC.

LSU is one of the schools most deserving of the "DBU" label and so it was a big story when Tiger defensive back Kelvin Joseph decided to transfer to Kentucky.

Once a Rivals100 recruit with a strong prospect pedigree and a full year with LSU under his belt, one of the great questions about next year's team is how much of an impact Joseph can make in Kentucky's secondary.

UK returns every contributing defensive back other than Jordan Griffin, so even if Joseph needs more time or doesn't hit the ground running right away the secondary should be fine. But he's a big X-Factor who, in a best case scenario, could take the unit to another level. He seems to be versatile enough to play multiple spots in the secondary as well.

It's not at all a given that Auburn quarterback transfer Joey Gatewood will be eligible for Kentucky during the 2020 season. The NCAA will have to review Kentucky's application for immediate eligibility and we have no clue how far off that decision might be.

Kentucky's coaches won't be planning on Gatewood being available, but they can prepare him in the meantime as though he would be.

If Terry Wilson is healthy, he's the overwhelming favorite to be the starter as a senior. But if he's not healthy or if something happens during the season, it would sure be nice for the Wildcats to have such a big-time talent as Gatewood available.

Phil Hoskins missed the start of Kentucky's 2019 season due to academic issues but then dealt with prolonged injury issues that kept him off the field for the entire campaign.

He was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA and that's very good news for a defensive line that will be replacing two of three starters: Calvin Taylor and TJ Carter.

If Hoskins is healthy and ready to go, and there's no reason to believe he won't be, he should perhaps be regarded as a frontrunner to start alongside Quinton Bohanna and one other player on UK's defensive line.

He played over 300 defensive snaps and had three sacks in 2018.

Before the start of last season probably very few people expected true freshman Taj Dodson to make much of an impact in his first year, especially with all the hype that a player like Moses Douglass got upon signing and arrival, at the same position (safety).

But Dodson played in each of Kentucky's first three games, 80 snaps in all, playing behind Yusuf Corker at free safety. He was also a significant special teams contributor on coverage and return units.

Had Dodson not gone down to an injury at that point in the year -- an injury that has remained a bit of a mystery -- he may have been the only freshman to burn a redshirt in the 2019 season.

Davonte Robinson's return and the arrival of Joseph might make it harder to get on the field as much in 2020 but the coaches obviously saw something in Dodson.