Mark Stoops had a lot of confidence in Brock Vandagriff. "I think he delivered."

Mark Stoops had high expectations for Brock Vandagriff heading into Vandagriff’s first career start last Saturday. Vandagriff didn’t disappoint his new head coach in Kentucky‘s win over Southern Miss. Playing only a little over two quarters of football due to lightning in the area, Vandagriff still accumulated over 200 yards of offense, throwing for 169 yards and rushing for another 35. Vandagriff completed 67 percent of his pass attempts in the 31-0 victory, finding Barion Brown for two touchdown receptions and Jordan Dingle for another on what would be the game’s final offensive play. Lightning struck after the PAT with 9:56 to go in the third quarter, cutting the game short.

At Monday’s press conference, Stoops described what he thought of Vandagriff’s debut. He said, “I think he made very good decisions. I thought Brock, as I mentioned postgame, I thought he played like I thought he would play. I had a lot of confidence in him going into the game, and I think he delivered.”

Stoops added that, though Vanagriff made mistakes, no quarterback is perfect. He said Vandagriff was the first to point out the mistakes and identify where Vandagriff could improve moving forward.

“But I thought his pocket awareness was very good. I thought, you know, in practice, that’s hard to simulate, all of that all the time, but the fact that he could step up, you know, and scramble when he had to, scram, buy time to throw the ball, throw in rhythm and on time, he did all those things.”

With South Carolina up next, Kentucky’s offense needs a good game plan for the first SEC defensive front that the Wildcats will see this season. “We’re certainly not going to be as comfortable this week,” Stoops said.

“But, (Vandagriff) played very good (against Southern Miss). It was good to see. I thought he played like a confident quarterback. He didn’t seem like a first-year starter. So, hopefully, we continue to improve on that.”

Stoops and Kentucky believe in Brock

Like Will Levis before him, Brock Vandagriff didn’t have much game experience at the college level, only limited time as a backup, so Kentucky didn’t have much game film to review when considering him out of the transfer portal. Vandagriff attempted only 18 passes for Georgia in 2023, seven coming against Kentucky. The former Bulldog went 5-for-7 and a touchdown during last year’s blowout in Athens, so Stoops saw firsthand what Vandagriff could do.

“We put a lot of faith and confidence in Brock because we believed in him,” Stoops said on Monday when asked about the challenges of considering an inexperienced starting quarterback. “What we did see on film, we liked… He’s coming from a program (where) you know how well coached he was, and they are. With playing Georgia, you know they’re not just good players; they’re very well-coached. So when we were taking somebody like Brock from there, who was their backup, you saw his operation, you saw the way he was coached. You saw the way played in high school. You felt pretty good about it.”

It helped that, like Stoops, Vandagriff is the son of a successful high school football coach. Stoops liked Vandagriff’s upbringing in a high school football family in Georgia, saying on Monday, “Greg, his father, has, you know, is a tough guy and a high school coach, and, you know, definitely instilled that in Brock, and he’s wired right. There’s no doubt about that.”

Hear more from Mark Stoops in Monday’s press conference.