Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings at least four days a week. The play sheet today calls for the chance to put up the first DawgNation.com story about elite 2021 QB prospect Brock Vandagriff.
Brock Vandagriff can spin a football.
File that in the obvious with it seems like it rains a lot and folks do stay on their phones.
Vandagriff rates as the state’s top-rated QB prospect for the 2021 cycle. He picked up his Georgia offer back in May of 2018.
That was a run of scholarship drops which included the likes of the following schools in a two-month span: Miami, UGA, Auburn, North Carolina, Michigan and Tennessee.
Vandagriff can make the throws. Even when his footwork is not in rhythm with his eyes. He was at the annual early spring “MVP Camp” on Sunday afternoon at Lovejoy High School. That is now all but an institution for the state’s talented rising sophomores and juniors.
What else is there to assess here?
- Well, he’s a coach’s kid for starters. Vandagriff also just transitioned out of basketball season for Prince Avenue Christian in Athens and was a three-sport athlete last year for the Wolverines.
- Vandagriff threw for 3,190 yards and 28 touchdowns AND ran for 1,001 yards and 23 more scores as a sophomore last fall.
Check. Check. Check.
Now check his film.
The “MVP Camp” is mostly seen as a breakout camp. That’s where guys first get noticed. Vandagriff was a Sunday exception. He was there under one condition. He didn’t want to get an award or receive anything.
Vandagriff was there to work. Rusty Mansell of 247Sports.com, who runs the camp with Chad Simmons of Rivals.com, said that there’s only one other quarterback he can recall that asked him that very same thing.
Let’s just say the young man that did the same wears the same color jersey on Saturdays as Vandagriff’s hair color. Leave it at that.
Vandagriff just wanted to be No. 129. That’s something a coach’s kid would do. No doubt.
He is transitioning out of basketball. It means he throws with his guys about once a week.
“But I wanted to be able to get some here today with dudes I have never thrown to before,” he said. “The one-on-one type stuff and plus I love to just get on a football field. The throws. There’s nothing better than the perfect throw. It just feels so great.”
There are a lot of things to like here. So much that they just seemed to pop up along a six-minute chat.
How does UGA sit with Brock Vandagriff?
He will enroll early in January of 2021.
“I will choose a school because of relationships,” he said. “I want to be close with the coaches and with the players. To be able to feel like I trust them and want them to be able to mature me.”
The schools that he visits are “in it” right now for Vandagriff.
“If we are taking time out of the day to go visit you right now then you have a priority spot in my decision,” he said.
Where do the Bulldogs stand here?
“I think Georgia is looking great,” Vandagriff said. “The way Jake Fromm reads stuff he is so smart on the field. That comes from his coaching. So that stuff like that with Georgia is going to be really good for me.”
He is aware that the Bulldogs did pick up a big highly-rated 2020 QB commit in Carson Beck. But he admits that he doesn’t know that much about him.
Vandagriff does know that he will camp in Athens this summer. When he does, he’s looking forward to throwing with Beck.
The Clarke County resident loves the facilities and he loves the location. That will work to help the Bulldogs here. Just keep reading. The home team does mean something to this young man.
He said those were the two biggest things he liked about the Bulldogs. But there are other schools in this thing.
Don’t expect him to flap his wings and leave the nest just because he can. If he moves away from this family group and a few arch-rivals on the ping pong table, then the fit will just be that good.
“Oklahoma is showing a lot of interest right now so we’re going to check it out and see what they are about,” he said. “If that’s the fit, then that’s the fit.”
He’s looking to check out Auburn, Florida, Oklahoma and Tennessee in the near future. Those next few trips are all planned.
“I still like LSU a lot,” he said. “We might also stop by Alabama. Those are the teams I want to get around and get in front of.”
Vandagriff carries a good sense of self-awareness. He knows he is not getting the ball out fast enough and is working at that. Especially when he gets to the elite camps and sees a different type of guy out there on his go-to receiver on that island.
That’s the on-the-field goal. The off-the-field goal is one he knows sits very highly on any elite passer’s skill set.
“Probably lead in a more respectful way,” he said. “I’d say I am kind of tough on kids sometimes because I really truly want the best for everyone on the team. I want to bring the best out in everyone. I want to go about doing that more respectfully. I’m not saying that it is rude but just to be more encouraging and patting them on the back.”
What really stands out about Brock Vandagriff
Scan that film. Vandagriff is playing Class A ball but seems more mature than a 2021 prospect.
He is. Vandagriff was held back a year to aid in his development. That happens more often than not these days. I can rattle off a lot of names of players that have chosen to take that route these days, including a few at Georgia.
It does seem to help with the maturity and leadership for young men under center. That said, his class standing is basically just the details. Vandagriff would be an elite QB prospect if he was a class of 2019, 2020 or a 2021 kid.
He has one of the best answers to the “holdback” question I’ve heard.
“It definitely benefitted me to be able to mature more,” Vandagriff said. “I mean you can say that this is soft or whatever but I love my family. Another year at the house is great. I’m one of the oldest in my class. I mean there’s like 10 people in my grade who are older than me still.”
“Some people are going to hate but it was the best decision here for my family. It was the best decision for me. I love being under the roof for one more year and plus I’ve developed mentally and physically in that one year so much better.”
Check. That’s a big one, but then he added another to reflect what that No. 12 at Prince Avenue is all about.
“I play football just to compete,” Vandagriff said. “I love being out on the field. I’m a competitor at heart. I just love to compete. I beat my sister in ping pong almost every night. We play ping pong a lot. I play my Dad a lot.”
“My girlfriend plays ping pong.”
A no-doubt big-timer program will land his commitment maybe about a year from now. When they do, the will get a guy who has lost a ping pong match to his girl.
That’s a good Vandagriff story, too.
“My girlfriend is actually really good,” Vandagriff said. “It is about fifty-fifty with us. I hate that.”
Nothing wrong with that. But is he a good sport when she wins?
“It is just awful,” he said. “We play until I win. Then we’re done.”
Check. Check. Check.
The “Franchise” decision timeline for Brock Vandagriff
His boys call him “The Franchise” sometimes. That’s his inner circle of friends and players at Prince Avenue Christian.
“We like it,” he said.
If everything is perfect with him and the future school of his choice, he will likely commit sometime around March of 2020. Kirby Smart and Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley have been by on visits of late. The Vandagriff family is also connected to Auburn.
“But if something is obviously just the fit [ahead of that] we will pull that trigger [on a decision] maybe before than later then,” he said. “But this time next year is probably the finish line.”
He loves the work that it takes to be great, but he has an uncommon reason why that matters to him. It does sound like he extends that “Franchise” tag out to his team.
“I’d say the work is the best because of the dudes I am doing it with,” he said. “We wake up in the morning. Well, the ‘Franchise’ does. Go work out at 6:30 in the morning. Then we have to go to class together. I guess I just can’t explain it. But just going to get a biscuit after the weight workouts with the boys is just a brotherhood.”
“I love that more than anything.”
Check. Check.
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