Brock Vandagriff took a lot of hits at Tennessee. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Who will start at quarterback for Kentucky Saturday when it hosts Murray State?
Brock Vandagriff has started every game in UK’s 3-6 season but was knocked out of UK’s last game at Tennessee?
Stoops has no real injury update to share on Vandagriff or receiver Barion Brown, who was also knocked out of the Tennessee game, during his media conference Monday.
“We will update you later in the week. I always try to be as forthcoming as I can, it’s just there is a lot going on. And for me to get in all the little nuances of that doesn’t make sense right now,” said Stoops when asked about Vandagriff and Brown. “ We will see how the week goes.
“We will be better, certainly some guys will be better than they’ve been and some others will still be evaluated.”
If Vandagriff cannot play or UK chooses not to risk playing him, how does Stoops feel about backup quarterback Gavin Wimsatt or even true freshman Cutter Boley, who has played only a few snaps at Florida?
“We have confidence in both of those guys. But we’ll see how the week progresses,” Stoops said
Kentucky opened its game at Tennessee with an impressive offensive start in the first quarter before stalling out in another loss, its fourth straight.
“Was encouraged with the way they competed, played, I thought physically we showed up a little bit against really high competition in a tough environment,” Stoops said. “Really encouraged by Brock’s performance in a very tough environment, tough defense, very good front, good cover guys, just tough all the way around. That’s what we have to get used to and be able to compete at that level all the time.”
Stoops said an “explosive run” by redshirt freshman Jamarion Wilcox started the offense.
“That always catches people’s attention,” Stoops said about the long run. “And even the tough runs, the dirty runs, the four or five yarders, and then that sets up some play action and it lets you protect a little better on first/second down. Something to build on.”
Stoops said UK planned to get Wilcox more carries a week earlier in the Auburn loss but got out of it because of mistakes by others.
“I wanted to continue to see him get the ball. Sometimes we are going to have to learn on the run a little bit with some of that because he definitely has some talent that could make people miss and play at a very high level. But there is still growth to have there, and again, that is not unlike all our players. All of our players got to continue to grow and get better,” Stoops said.
4 Responses
I would play Brock the first quarter and a half. Then play Gavin for the second half of the second quarter unless Brock is 10-10 or nearly perfect. We should lead at halftime by at least 20. Then I would let Cutter take the reigns the whole second half. Whoever plays the best out of the trio would get the start at Texas. The problem is Beau Allen would look like Tom Brady against Murray state. So it proves nothing to nobody except Cutter. He’s the only one who hasn’t played college football except for the massacre against Florida. So I might even give Brock a quarter Gavin a quarter and Cutter a half. I would tell Gavin the only way he’s going to play at Kentucky is if he switches positions. I now see why the Rutgers coach wanted him to switch to tight end. Stoops said no way your like Mike Vick come on ill play you at a position that you have no chance at.
Gavin is a waste of time. He proved he is not a real QB at Rutgers with his passing %.
Brock is the victim of a failed coaching staff who lost contact with every player, so they quit. No protection & no blocking are a recipe for disaster and injuries.
The TE is a wasted position at UK because the staff does not properly prepare the OL mentally or technique-wise and therefore they think more bodies on the Libe for protection will cover up their inability to coach. All it does is steal away some excellent TEs who can catch the ball and gain yards after the catch.
Boyer should have been given snaps when UK routes the first 2 cupcakes of the season. Definitely not in the swamp when it was one of the biggest the Gators have had since crushing UK several years ago.
Gavin was not treated fairly. He should have been recruited but NOT at QB. It was misleading for a quality athletic player to be lured with a QB sign instead of letting him know what UK could do for him elsewhere. Of course, the TE position would have been disappointing because UK staff has not yet realized it’s OK to pass to a TE more than once in FADING BLUE moon..
Vandergriff is about 6th to 8th among QBs in the SEC, if I recall info in a VV article a few weeks ago.
This is a brutal conference with strong DL on every team and the UK OL does not have a competent coach to teach the OL how to protect the passer.
53-0 UK vs So Miss the opening game…
498 total yards
265 passing yards
232 rushing yards
Run Defense
8 yards/19 carries = 0.42 yd/
Where did these players go?
There are negative vibes between the staff & players and it has destroyed UK FB !!!
Clean house – without clearance of the stench, there will always be some damaging debris leftover to cause everyone else to get infected
Wilcox should have been averaging 20+ carries per game when Demie is out and the two together should have averaged 15 rushes each.
The OC is lost. Every wasted timeout early in the game makes him look like he just arrived late and missed the earlier snaps.
A decent HC, a solid intelligent & hardworking staff and genuine connections between staff & players & players would have had UK with one loss at most. UGA should have been a win. TN would be the toss-up.