Mark Stoops discussed how Kentucky QB Brock Vandagriff played in his first start

Brock Vandagriff is going to be a star for Kentucky.

Kentucky’s Brock Vandagriff ran with the football against Southern Miss Saturday night at Kroger Field. Aug. 31, 2024 / Scott Utterback/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

When the Kentucky football team got its season started against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles, it was the first start of Brock Vandagriff's career. Aside from a few bad decisions, Vandagriff was great in this game, going 12-18 for 169 yards and three touchdowns in basically one half. Had this game been played out, Vandagriff would have had a massive stat line.

Vandagriff showed a ton of promise in this game, and Big Blue Nation is fired up to see their new quarterback get SEC play started against South Carolina on Saturday.

At his Monday press conference, Coach Mark Stoops shared his thoughts on how Vandagriff played in week one for the Wildcats. Here were Coach Stoops's thoughts on how Vandagriff played in week one against Southern Miss.

“Yea, I agree, I think he made very good decisions. I thought Brock, as I mentioned post-game, I thought he played like I thought he would play and I had a lot of confidence in him going into the game, and I think he delivered. Does that mean he played perfect or anything like that? No. He knows he’ll be the first to admit that there are things that we need to improve on, but I thought his pocket awareness was very good. In practice, it’s hard to simulate all of that all the time, but the fact that he could step up and scramble when he had to buy time to throw the ball, throw in rhythm, and on time, he did all those things. He’s not going to be perfect, no quarterback is. With all that decision-making, there’s a lot that goes on, there’s a lot that they’re reading, and then they have to feel all that pressure. As you just mentioned, we’re certainly not going to be as comfortable this week with South Carolina’s defensive front and the way they can pressure the quarterback, so we got to make sure we have a very good plan for that, but he played very good and it was good to see. I thought he played like a confident quarterback. He didn’t seem like a first-year starter, so hopefully, he can continue to improve on that.”

- Mark Stoops on Brock Vandagriff