LEXINGTON, Ky. — Before he sinks into a conference room chair for a sit-down interview on the second floor of Kentucky’s football facility, Brock Vandagriff excuses himself to run downstairs and grab a protein shake. It’s not his first or his last such beverage. If the blue UK long-sleeve dry-fit shirt and black Nike joggers weren’t a giveaway, one might assume the red-bearded signal-caller was taking a break from chopping wood.

The protein shake came after finishing some winter conditioning, wherein Vandagriff had something on his mind when he saw his training metrics tracked by Catapult. Or rather, Vandagriff had someone on his mind.

“What did Levis hit?” he asked the UK staff.

“Levis,” of course, is former Kentucky quarterback Will Levis. The 2-year UK starter is now QB1 for the Tennessee Titans after taking over midseason of his rookie year. In many ways, Vandagriff is trying to follow in Levis’ footsteps. In 2021, Levis led UK to its best offense in 14 years en route to the program’s second winning record in SEC play since the Jimmy Carter administration.

Like Levis, who transferred from Penn State, Vandagriff’s career was stuck in neutral behind older, more established quarterbacks for 3 years at a big-time program (Georgia). Both left their respective big-time programs in hopes of shifting their careers into overdrive at Kentucky. Also of note, both quarterbacks are built like a 6-3 piece of iron. Levis was a bit sturdier at 232 pounds while Vandagriff is listed at 210 pounds. Hence, why Vandagriff is pushing for Levis’ training numbers.

After Vandagriff returns to the conference room, protein shake at the ready, he’s eventually asked about the similarities he shares with the former UK quarterback. While Vandagriff doesn’t have any imminent plans for eating banana peels or mixing mayo into his coffee — duck hunting and small-mouth bass have his off-field attention — he doesn’t shy away from the on-field comp to Levis. When he’s asked about the nickname “Southern Will Levis,” Vandagriff smiles and lets out a “heck yeah.”

It’s not that Vandagriff wants to be Levis; it’s that he wants to be inspired by Levis’ approach.

“Even just walkin’ around the hallways, they’ve got pictures of him and you’re like, ‘That dude’s a freak. He’s very jacked,’” Vandagriff tells SDS. “Definitely just trying to put on a few extra pounds before summer and fall. Maybe not quite have that physique, but just being able to run and throw like (Levis) is cool, and just taking what he did in the weight room and in conditioning, how he applied that here and at the next level … it’s cool to see that you know that stuff works.”

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Vandagriff admits that, unlike Levis, he still has plenty of on-field work to do to become a household name in the sport. He hasn’t started a game since he led Prince Avenue Christian (Bogart, Ga.) to a Georgia Class A-Private State Championship as a decorated 5-star recruit in the fall of 2020. Vandagriff can recite the few instances in which he actually took a hit in his college career. One came when, ironically enough, he relieved Carson Beck in the 4th quarter of Georgia’s blowout win against Kentucky last season.

“I got freakin’ smoked against Kentucky last year,” Vandagriff said. “I was running, and I was thinking to myself, ‘Am I gonna hurdle this guy?’ I thought I was gonna have a chance to score. As (the UK defender) is getting closer, he’s staying high and I’m thinking I’m just gonna run out of bounds. I eased up and got smoked.

“One of my first couple days here, they were all like, ‘Bro, you gotta learn how to slide.’”

Lesson learned — even late in a blowout, a freshman defensive back can drop the hammer if a ball carrier is indecisive at this level. That decision-making in game speed will still be a learning curve for Vandagriff, who only had 21 career passing attempts in his 3 years at Georgia (1 was a touchdown that came 4 plays after he took that aforementioned hit).

How does Vandagriff plan on finding that run-pass balance when those decisions are magnified?

“Pocket passer, trying to move the ball vertically downfield, throw it on the perimeter when I have to. But if something presents itself, dude, I’m not just gonna stare at it and try to throw a 50-50 ball. I’m gonna try to get there and move the chains, not take any crazy hits,” he said. “If it’s 3rd down or I’m trying to get a touchdown, maybe try to get an extra yard or two, but just moving the chains is a big deal and whatever’s the best way to do that … it’s just playing the game, moving the ball, however that looks like.”

A new look

There are other things that Vandagriff has to learn as a starting quarterback in the SEC. For starters, media obligations are still understandably foreign to him. It’s different now than when he was in high school and his dad, who coached him at Prince Avenue Christian, could handle the requests that came for the 5-star recruit. Much like taking a hit in a live game, there were only a handful of instances at Georgia in which Vandagriff was made available. A one-off with The Players Lounge here, a pre-Playoff availability for all active UGA players there. At a place with closed practices to the media, a backup like Vandagriff was mostly out of the media spotlight.

“It’s something new for me,” Vandagriff said. “But it’s something I’m ready to get used to.”

Vandagriff is still getting used to having a relatively trimmed beard that isn’t bursting out of his chin strap, and not having his long red hair flowing out of the back of his helmet is still an adjustment.

The decision to get rid of those came because of a conversation with former Duke coach David Cutcliffe, who is currently the SEC’s Special Assistant to the Commissioner for Football Relations. Vandagriff met Cutcliffe at a Duke camp that he attended when he was in middle school. He came away from it with a new Duke binder, a new leader in his distant college decision and a new respect for Cutcliffe. The two have kept in contact over the years. During one of their recent conversations, Cutcliffe put it bluntly for Vandagriff. “(Cutcliffe) said, ‘No quarterback has long hair. You need to cut that,’” Vandagriff said. “I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I got a haircut a week later because that’s how much I respect Coach Cut.”

He did try to pull off the solo mustache look early in winter conditioning at UK, but that got nixed (video via UK Athletics).

Another area that Vandagriff had to rein in throughout his college career was the weight room. Training, whether he’s chasing down Levis’ numbers or not, has always been something he embraced in a family loaded with athletes (more on them later). During winter conditioning at UK, he “easily” hit 305 pounds on the power clean, which was a shade less than the record-setting 325 pounds he put up as a senior at Prince Avenue Christian.

“I was pretty jacked up about that,” Vandagriff said. “But when I got to Georgia, they were like, ‘Hey, we’re not trying to be a powerlifter. We’re training to be a quarterback.”

Part of that training meant learning a college playbook. When Vandagriff made the quick 20-minute trip to Athens, he couldn’t believe the size of Todd Monken’s playbook. UGA ran roughly 25 plays, but did so with about 75 different variations through formations and pre-snap motions. There wasn’t any need to dumb down the playbook for the 5-star freshman when the quarterback room featured Beck entering Year 2, a 23-year-old Stetson Bennett IV and JT Daniels, who was set to become UGA’s 2021 starter in his 4th college season. “I was drinking out of a firehose that first year,” Vandagriff admitted.

Eventually, Vandagriff adjusted. He credits Monken for establishing his mental foundation, which 2023 Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo built on.

The problem was that Vandagriff never got the opportunity to truly put that on display. Even though he eventually rose from 4th on the depth chart as a true freshman to being second string in 2023, Vandagriff could never leapfrog Beck in the pecking order. Once Bennett finally ran out of eligibility after leading UGA to a pair of national titles, Beck won the battle with Vandagriff en route to earning All-SEC honors at season’s end.

Beck then had to decide his future. He and Vandagriff have developed a close friendship during their countless hours spent together the past 3 years, so when Beck decided to return for Year 5 in Athens, he told his understudy first. That made Vandagriff’s 2024 decision much easier. To the transfer portal he went.

“Sitting on the bench 4 years … you’d have to throw 35 touchdowns and 0 interceptions to be able to get looked at to play at the next level, which should be everyone’s goal,” Vandagriff said. “It was still a really tough decision to just pick up and leave everything I’ve known. The furthest I’ve lived from my house is 20 minutes down the road … it was tough, but at the end of the day, you only have a certain window to play college football. When this opportunity arose, why would you not want to go play ball?”

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Change of heart

Spend enough time with Vandagriff and it’s easy to see that he’s chomping at the bit to finally run an offense again. When asked to describe the type of play that he likes to make, he doesn’t hark back to a throw he made late in a game at Georgia or reference trucking some helpless defender in high school.

Vandagriff “vividly” remembers a play that Beck made in the Tennessee game. Up 17-7, Georgia was faced with a 3rd-and-12 on its own 27-yard line with 5 minutes left in the first half. Facing man coverage with 3 receivers split out wide, Beck had to tune out the 101,195 fans on Rocky Top and put a back-shoulder throw right on the money for Dillon Bell to move the chains. Boom. Easy pitch and catch for 21 yards.

Those are the types of throws that Vandagriff envisions himself making at Kentucky. Third downs. Red-zone. Clutch.

Vandagriff originally envisioned making those throws in a Liam Coen offense. Coen engineered the UK offense in 2021 when Levis had his breakout season. But nearly 2 months after Vandagriff announced his commitment to the Cats, Coen again left Kentucky for an NFL offensive coordinator job.

“It’s college football. It’s a business,” Vandagriff said. “I didn’t really think (Coen leaving) could be a possibility coming in, but it happened. Sometimes, that’s just the way it goes. Everything happens for a reason.”

Once upon a time, Vandagriff had a change of heart. He committed to Oklahoma ahead of his junior year of high school, which sent shockwaves throughout the recruiting world. Someone who grew up 14 miles from Athens opted not to play for the local powerhouse, but rather for elite QB developer Lincoln Riley 900 miles away. Speculation about Vandagriff’s commitment to Oklahoma began when The Bulldog Maven’s Brooks Austin quoted him as saying “Kirby (Smart) came to Prince Avenue last month I told him, ‘Look if Lincoln Riley leaves, I’ll probably commit to Georgia the next week.’”

When Vandagriff dropped his commitment from Oklahoma on New Year’s Day 2020 and flipped to Georgia 3 weeks later, dots were connected. Was Riley on his way out of Norman? He was, but not for nearly another 2 years. Vandagriff cleared the air on the Riley part of his decision.

“That didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said.

Vandagriff said it had to do with a realization he had with his grandparents at their house in Alabama during Thanksgiving 2019. At the time, he was committed to the Sooners. Reality sunk in when his grandpa offered up a daunting thought.

“He said, ‘Oklahoma is pretty far from here. We’re not gonna be able to go to any of the games basically,’” Vandagriff said.

At Georgia, Vandagriff had the benefit of seeing his family whenever he wanted. He still went to church with them on Sundays. Not being able to do that at UK has been an adjustment, but he finds comfort in having his younger sister, Anna Greer (she goes by “AG”), a short 30 minutes away at Eastern Kentucky, where she’s an all-conference volleyball player. They go to church together and grab a bite afterward. AG invited her older brother to go to the beach with her friends for spring break, but was turned down. “No, I would like to go home,” Vandagriff told her.

In a few short months, a busy school year will begin for the Vandagriff family. In addition to AG and Brock playing their respective sports in Kentucky, their youngest sister, Audrey, will be a freshman softball player at Alabama. It’s not a surprise that a pair of former college athletes — Greg Vandagriff played football at Tennessee Wesleyan and Kelly Vandagriff played basketball at Southern Union — raised 3 college athletes. They’ll rack up no shortage of miles in 2024-25.

With all of that travel to juggle, Vandagriff isn’t sure that they’ll be at every game, but one would assume that Sept. 14 in Lexington will be a high priority for the family. That’s the day UK welcomes Georgia to Lexington.

“It’ll get here when it gets here,” Vandagriff said, “and we’ll be ready.”

Settling in

For now, Vandagriff has the UGA reunion on the back burner. He has more pressing items on his to-do list.

He’s working to develop a rapport with his new receivers. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, workouts are followed by Vandagriff taking 45-60 minutes to throw with the UK pass-catchers. Much of that time after his arrival was spent working on more basic routes instead of the UK offense because of the uncertainty that loomed regarding Coen’s status.

After Bush Hamdan was hired to replace Coen, the new UK offensive coordinator spent an hour on a call with Vandagriff getting to know his new quarterback. There aren’t any hunting trips planned for the new duo just yet. “We didn’t really talk about that too much. That might be a conversation maybe after we learn what ‘Install 1’ is,” Vandagriff joked.

There’s more for Vandagriff to learn about his new surroundings. He committed to Kentucky without going on a recruiting visit. It was a football decision.

As Vandagriff gets more comfortable in the conference room chair, he speaks about his new Lexington experiences like driving in snow for the first time. There’s snow in the forecast later that day that Vandagriff said could deter family from coming in town to see him, though admittedly, he’s still not ready to be much of a tour guide.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten a feel for the area yet. I know how to get to my house, church and here. That’s about it.” Vandagriff said. “That’s all that really matters, isn’t that right?”

Heck yeah.