The second that Brock Vandagriff entered the transfer portal, I thought about what the red-bearded signal-caller would look like in Kentucky blue.

The former 5-star quarterback didn’t get to start a game in his 3 seasons in Athens, though it’s hard to fault him too much for that. Not beating out the likes of Stetson Bennett IV and Carson Beck was hardly an indictment of Vandagriff’s abilities. For 3 years, all we got of Vandagriff was a spring game here, a practice report there. A garbage time rep here, a hype video there.

Intrigued? I was.

So was Kentucky.

As fate would have it, Vandagriff announced his commitment to the Cats almost as soon as many of us connected those dots. Barring some sort of offseason development, Vandagriff will finally get a chance to be a Power 5 starter. It’ll be the third consecutive year in which Kentucky will turn to a Power 5 transfer as QB1.

Fortunately for the Cats, Vandagriff will enroll in January, unlike Will Levis in 2021. Levis arrived post-spring and had to master the offense well enough to beat out Lexington native Beau Allen. Go figure that Allen lost that battle, transferred to Tarleton State, then to Georgia Southern and is now back at UK to add some veteran depth after both Kaiya Sheron and Destin Wade hit the portal.

After all of that movement in the UK quarterback room, it’s clear. It’s Vandagriff’s team now.

(No, that’s not me. That’s Kentucky OC Liam Coen … probably.)

The frustrating Kentucky offenses of the past 2 years didn’t stop the Cats from going out and landing one of the most coveted signal-callers available. Why? The 2022 Kentucky offense featured a one-and-done offensive coordinator (Rich Scangarello) and a doormat of an offensive line. Both of those areas improved in 2023. The area that didn’t improve? Devin Leary.

The NC State transfer didn’t look like a victim of the scheme or his surroundings, though drops from the UK receivers were maddening at times. Leary’s issues were related to execution. If you watched UK this year, you saw someone who consistently struggled with accuracy. Whether that was the byproduct of not running as much up-tempo offense or his post-pec injury throwing motion, make of it what you will.

Even though Leary struggled, Kentucky stood by him. He never missed a start. When Levis had a slow start in 2021, UK stuck with him and ended up having its best offense in 14 years.

Reps and patience. That’s exactly what Vandagriff needs at this point.

He’s going to a spot that’s different from where he left, and it’s different from the bar one has to meet in a Lincoln Riley offense. Once upon a time, Vandagriff was a Georgia native who signed up to play for Riley at Oklahoma. Instead, though, he joined the bevy of 5-star quarterbacks in Athens. Like, the place where being a 5-star quarterback doesn’t guarantee you anything.

Vandagriff is the type of player that Kentucky isn’t getting out of the high school ranks. He’s the type of player that Kentucky hopes to land in the transfer portal. He’s a bit more like Levis in that he wasn’t necessarily a bust. He was just stuck behind a more developed quarterback and in need of a new opportunity.

Watch Vandagriff and you’ll think you stumbled upon Southern Will Levis. This was Vandagriff as a senior in high school casually trying to break his school’s power clean record:

Who knows what Vandagriff’s weight-lifting numbers look like now, but I can’t imagine that 3 years in the Georgia strength and conditioning program hurt those.

Obviously, his success in Lexington won’t be determined by the amount of weight he lifts. It’ll be determined by the amount of games he wins.

There’s a learning curve that should be a bit easier for him having worked in a pro-style offense under Todd Monken and then Mike Bobo. That should help him in ways that hurt Leary. Of course, Leary had the benefit of live reps. Vandagriff doesn’t have that yet. There’s no way to say with certainty how he’ll handle that. It’s one thing to be the exciting backup. It’s another to have to react to defenses who have spent all week scouting you.

Vandagriff didn’t complete a pass against Power 5 competition until, ironically enough, this past season against Kentucky. That game also produced his first TD pass against Power 5 competition.

OK, so it wasn’t exactly dropping it in a bucket 50 yards downfield, but Vandagriff hasn’t had a bunch of those opportunities yet. All reports out of Georgia were that arm strength and willingness to run aren’t lacking. Nothing about Vandagriff’s 3 years in Athens suggested that he couldn’t live up to that 5-star billing. That doesn’t mean he’s destined to be a superstar. For all I know, Vandagriff will struggle with the opportunity and eventually, he’ll give way to Allen.

But more likely, I believe, is that he can take a page out of the 2021 Kentucky playbook. After Levis got off to that slow start throwing the ball in Coen’s offense — the defense and ground game did a lot of the heavy lifting early — it was a much different story down the stretch. We saw a fully unleashed version of Levis, who became a nightmare with his legs.

The hope is that Vandagriff can tap into that from the jump. Can he be fearless with his legs? Can he get on the same page as those promising, but inconsistent UK receivers? Can he make something out of nothing?

There are more questions than answers at this stage of Vandagriff’s career. That’s fine. We’ll get them soon enough.

That’s a whole lot more intriguing than the alternative.