UK has to put Brock Vandagriff in Better Positions to be Successful

Brock Vandagriff was under constant pressure from South Carolina. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky coach Mark Stoops restated the obvious Monday when he said Kentucky “clearly got out of rhythm” on offense in its 31-6 loss to South Carolina.

Quarterback Brock Vandagriff was 3-for-10 passing for 30 yards with one interception that was returned for a touchdown. Backup Gavin Wimsatt was 3-for-7 for 14 yards with an interception. The two quarterbacks were sacked five times and South Carolina had 11 tackles for loss.

If that wasn’t enough, UK had 11 penalties for 63 yards — one kept alive a South Carolina scoring drive and several stopped potential UK scoring threats.

“The execution, the undisciplined play, was embarrassing. The penalties and things of that nature, just can’t do it. We are still in the game and hit the big pass out to the 30 or so and then we have two more penalties after that. That is just totally unacceptable, unexpected and it is what it is,” Stoops said Monday.

Obviously the spotlight is going to stay on Vandagriff, a Georgia transfer, especially with Georgia coming to Lexington Saturday. Stoops answered a lot of questions about Vandagriff Monday.

Question: How will he handle Vandagriff going into the Georgia game?

Stoops: “Yeah, I think he’ll be fine. We have to play good around him. You’ve heard me say, and it’s very, very true, he has to have some time, and we have to have a good plan for him. He’s playing a great defense. Brock is a tough, resilient guy. We have to play well around him. We have to put him in positions to be successful, and he’ll be good. We’ll just leave it at that. I have confidence that he’ll get back and play well.”

Question: Since Vandagriff threw only 21 passes at Georgia, did UK have to go back to high school film to evaluate Vandagriff?

Stoops:   “I’ve addressed that several times already, and I’m not going to second guess myself because of this game. Brock, we saw him play a complete game in game one, and we saw the way he’s capable of playing. We did not have a good game on Saturday, that is not all on Brock. We didn’t give him a chance half the time, let’s be honest. So, you can’t put that on him.”

Question: But did you need to look at high school film of him?

Stoops: “Of course you do. You look at all avenues. You look at everything you can and make the best decision.”

Question: Did how Vandagriff played against UK last year impress Stoops?

Stoops:  “Of course it did. As I’ve mentioned several times, when you did see him in there, you see the way he operated. You know the system that he comes from; it’s a complicated, very good system. He’s been asked to do a lot, and when he came in, it was just very smooth, very good, and very clean. Again, he’s one play away from playing in some of the most important games of the year. So, I think that tells you that he’s a pretty good player.”

Question: Did Vandagriff run less against South Carolina because he took so many hits running the ball so much in UK’s first game?

Stoops:  “I do, I think that’s part of it, on us and making sure he’s not getting hit too much. There’s going to be some designed quarterback runs but also not putting it all on him. That is a perfect example in hindsight again I’m not throwing Bush (Hamdan) or anybody else, we talk about things openly, we’re going to own our stuff. To me there’s no read there, you hand the ball off or you throw it. If you want to play-action, throw it, but don’t put the read in there. Don’t give him that decision. Hand the ball off or throw the ball.

“But something where we’re reading it, when he was knocked around quite a bit in that first game, and we are talking to him about being smart and protecting himself. Now with that being said, we knew early on we didn’t want to get that ball on the perimeter and taking negative yardage plays with how disruptive getting up the field some of those guys are.”