Kentucky football comes to Neyland Stadium on Saturday boasting both the worst passing and scoring offense in the entire SEC. After making a quarterback change in their loss against Auburn, who Kentucky will start at quarterback against Tennessee is unclear.
“We’re evaluating everything today,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said on Monday. “We’re getting back with those guys and want to get face-to-face with them again. I know we’ve addressed it. It was something we were going to do in the game. We knew we were going to do that so both quarterbacks were aware of it. We’ll address that moving forward.”
Georgia transfer Brock Vandagriff has started at quarterback for Kentucky every game this season, completing 57% of his passes for 1,236 yards, six touchdowns and five touchdowns so far this year.
Vandagriff played well in Kentucky’s upset win at Ole Miss, one of just two games this season that he’s passed for over 200 yards. That success and experience starting on the road impacts Kentucky’s decision on who they will start at Tennessee.
“Absolutely,” Hamdan said on whether the win at Ole Miss gives him confidence in Vandagriff playing on the road. “I’ve said it many times, Brock is extremely steady. He is never too high, never too low. He’s a guy that understands what it takes to win in this conference. I think the biggest thing with him is just consistency.”
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However, Vandagriff’s success in the Ole Miss game was short lived. In Kentucky’s three-game losing streak following the win, he’s averaging 148 passing yards per game with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
That led to Kentucky making a move to backup Gavin Wimsatt. The Rutgers transfer did perform much better, completing three-of-10 passes for 34 yards and an interception while adding 23 rushing yards on nine carries.
While Wimsatt has little experience as a full-time quarterback this season, Kentucky has used him as a wildcat quarterback over the course of the season and he has 42 carries for 151 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the year.
Vandagriff isn’t a statue in the quarterback but he certainly isn’t as dynamic with his legs as Wimsatt is.
“I think we had been putting him in there to supplement the running backs, to get some quarterback run going and try to sneak in a throw here or there to keep the defense honest,” Hamdan said.
Kickoff between Tennessee and Alabama is at 7:45 p.m. ET. Tom Hart, Jordan Rodgers and Cole Cubelic are on the call for the SEC Network.
