Brock Vandagriff Believes Kentucky Defense is One of the Best in College Football

by:Nick Roush•09/30/24•

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Kentucky QB Brock Vandagriff at Ole Miss, via Mont Dawson, KSR

The quarterback gets more blame after a loss and credit for a win than either deserves. When SEC This Morning wanted to speak with the Kentucky quarterback, he spent plenty of time praising the defense that put Ole Miss in the torture chamber.

An offense that scored 55 points a game was held to just 17 against the Wildcats. The Ole Miss rushing attack was limited to 92 yards, about 150 fewer than their season-long average. They were 1 of 10 on third down, only picking up 14 first downs the entire game. Ole Miss’ Fraser Masin had four punts in the first four games of the season. He punted it five times against the Cats.

Brock Vandagriff, who is on this week’s Davey O’Brien Award “Great 8” list, knew Kentucky had a chance to win because of the way the defense played against Ole Miss.

“I think it’s one of the best in the SEC and maybe the nation. There’s not really any missing holes out there. The dudes up front, (are) just big dudes. They’re gonna go in there and do their job. Linebacker unit’s playing well, secondary’s playing well,” the Kentucky quarterback said Monday morning on the SEC Network.

“You heard it from J.Q. (Hardaway) after the game. He said that we were playing for Max (Hairston) in the secondary. We had freshmen guys rise up to the occasion. DJ (Waller) came in and played some ball. (I’m) really proud of the whole defense. It is tough going against them in practice, especially fall camp. So obviously, when some of our stuff isn’t working, it’s not like this is the end all, be all. This is one of the best defenses in the country, and it might not look like this every Saturday.”

Following the performance, the Kentucky defense ranks in the Top 20 in SP+ (No. 17), havoc rate (No. 2), success rate (No. 12), against the run (No.9), and on third down (No. 19).

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Kentucky Prepared for a SWAT Team Mission at Ole Miss

The defense’s success is contagious. They’re play inspired the offense to crank it up a couple of notches.

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“I think the guys have really responded well on offense and the defense has been playing their butts off all year, so we got to do our part and be able to get in the end zone for them because we know that the defense is going to go out there and play well,” said Vandagriff.

The defense has set the tone for this team. The formula to win is clear. The offense trusts the defense to put them in situations to win. They won’t win ’em all, but they finally started stacking those winning plays at Ole Miss. Even when this team was at its lowest, the focus remained on execution and the results followed on Saturday in Oxford.

“Everything happens for a reason. Not getting really too antsy for anything and just making sure that you’re taking it one day at a time and you’re being where your feet are. It’s kind of the big mantra of this team, just taking it one day at a time, and just pounding the stone, clocking into work every day, doing your job. Make sure you do your job and not worry about other people doing their jobs,” said Vandagriff.

“I think it was kind of the game plan going in, like a SWAT team mission. You’re gonna go in there, it’s gonna be a hectic environment. We knew that. And we knew that we had a couple guys out, things of that sort, but we knew that the guys that we needed were the guys in our room.”