Want to attack every day with the latest UGA football recruiting info? That’s what the Intel brings. This entry offers a comprehensive overview of the impressive season-opening performance by Prince Avenue Christian senior QB Brock Vandagriff on Friday night against Calvary Day out of Savannah.
BOGART, Ga. — Georgia QB commit Brock Vandagriff had a touchdown for every star of his 247Sports Composite rating on Friday night against Calvary Day School out of Savannah.
And then had one to spare in a 42-7 victory.
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound senior completed 17 of his 25 passes for 234 yards and four scores. He also racked up 107 yards and two touchdowns with his legs.
How did his father-slash-head coach size up his night?
“I thought he played well,” Prince Avenue Christian coach Greg Vandagriff said. “He wants to go 100 miles per hour and they had changed their defense and we needed to see their pre-snap alignments.”
He put the ball within the catch radius of his receivers on 24 of those throws. There was only throw he missed. The future Georgia QB missed a drag working to his left from about 10 yards out.
There were other throws that were challenging. It was part of the reason why Vandagriff only graded himself out with a “B” in the win. That’s a tough scale to live up to, but he did turn the ball over once when he dropped back to throw a wet ball with a sweaty grip and even more sweat on both arms.
The ball slipped out of his grip, went up over his head and was eventually recovered by Calvary Day.
“There were some more passes I could have completed and just maybe recall some drops,” Brock Vandagriff said. “But I would say I need to put it in a better spot and just know my receivers better. With that, I think I can do better with that and then the little fumblerooski deal. That’s happened like twice in my career and I just feel like an idiot after it happened.”
“But when you have a wet hand, wet ball and a wet arm that’s not a good combo.”
Check out how Vandagriff broke down some of his biggest plays of the night against Calvary Day.
“We were just glad to be out there,” Vandagriff said. “It was awesome running through that helmet today.”
Brock Vandagriff: A pregame routine you might not know yet
Vandagriff gets anxious the night before games. Any game.
That was when it really hit him that after everything in this age of the pandemic he was getting to play his senior season at Prince Avenue Christian maybe 15 miles from his future home at UGA after all.
“I always get a little bit of butterflies the night before and do not sleep,” Vandagriff said on Friday night. “But last night it was awful. I probably only slept two or three hours instead of three or four. I can’t every sleep the day before a game. They day before I hunt. I get all amped up about it.”
“I guess it happens when I am passionate about something.”
Touchdown #1: The called shot to Logan Johnson
Prince Avenue senior wide receiver Logan Johnson is one of the most underrated and well-respected high school players in Georgia.
He’s maybe 5 feet, 7 inches tall. Maybe. Give or take an inch. That’s part of the reason why the Troy commit is so well-respected.
It is all about his mindset.
“There’s not one thing you can tell him for him to say ‘I can’t do that’ because everything you say is ‘I got you’ and ‘I got you’ every time.”
Vandagriff hit Johnson for a 28-yard touchdown for the first Prince Avenue Christian touchdown of 2020. It was more of the same from a connection which tallied up 62 catches for 1621 yards and 18 touchdown catches last season.
Vandagriff went off-book with this 3-star prospect for their first one, too.
“I looked at him before the play and I said ‘Run a post’ and he runs a post and ‘Bam’ and was like ‘Dude why did you say that?'” Vandagriff said. “I said ‘Because I trust you.'”
Vandagriff had already computed it all up. He knew Johnson could beat his man with a post.
“I saw it was one guy high on man-to-man and he got the job done and scored,” Vandagriff said. “He’s a great dude to throw to.”
TD #3: Brock Vandagriff puts a grown man TD on the board
His third touchdown sparked the biggest reaction on social media. Vanadgriff hit the Tebow button on a 3-yard keeper to the left side.
“It was supposed to be a ‘C’ gap run with a running back blocking out,” Vandagriff said. “But they had that Amazon man out there at defensive end. So I said if I can beat him to the edge I said I like my chances out there with an outside linebacker or a cornerback rather than this guy.”
Prince Avenue Christian already had him looking at that play at halftime.
“So it opened up. I watched the film at halftime and I probably could have run it through the ‘C’ gap but I didn’t really trust myself so I ended up taking it outside and got a little physical at the end for the touchdown.”
Vandagriff should have stayed with the play design for the ball to go through the “C” gap. He’s smart enough to see that highlight go viral and realize he didn’t have to lower his shoulder to reach the end zone.
“But production is what matters,” his father Greg Vandagriff said. “It is easy to have an opinion when you are watching the game. It is another thing to do it when the bullets are flying.”
The viral score all came in the ebb and flow of a series. Vandagriff fired a dart on a slant route on the previous snap that hi receiver could not haul in. If that ball is caught, then it was just another business like drive and not a viral highlight to get a lot of fans excited on social media.
The other play you need to see from Brock Vandagriff’s debut
The other big highlight of the night was just stupid. It sheds a light on the operating system for Vandagriff out on the field that goes beyond being a head coach’s kid, that Elite 11 arm and those 5-star measurables.
Vandagriff goes out on that field to hunt, too.
Check this one out.
What was he thinking?
“Well my Dad the first thing he is going to say is ‘What the heck are you thinking?’ but whenever that ball was low and I turned around there were 400 things going through my mind,” Brock Vanadgriff said. “It was how close I am to the goal line. It is can I get it, though?”
“Right when I picked it up I got my hands on it and I said if there was someone right there I was just going to fall and there was no one there. And [then] I said I can make him miss and I pick it up and just get what they can give you.”
He said he was just mainly trying to get the ball to the line of scrimmage at that point. But he weaved through traffic and then spammed the speed burst button to get to the corner to the boundary. He was eventually forced out after a 20-yard gain.
A better question: What was his head coach thinking?
“It was risky but players can make a play that other kids only think about,” Greg Vandagriff said.
He didn’t say anything to his 5-star son/quarterback after the play or even the night after the game. If he did want to reach for the right coaching point there, he knows what he would share.
“I will just say that it was a risky move and if you pick it up you are risking a fumble, big hit or both,” his father said.
Brock Vandagriff revealed he’s not a magician with his thinking on that snap. At least not yet. When that play unfolded, he was not trying for an out-of-this-world play by looking downfield for an open man.
“Most of the time the d-linemen are going to be on you,” he said. “Coverage is going to be the same and your guys are not going to keep on running Verts when the ball is 10 yards behind me. I think it is just to take whatever they can give you there.”
Brock Vandagriff: Goals for his final season before Georgia
Goals. Every player has then. Especially 5-star QBs. Vandagriff, the son of a well-respected Georgia high school football coach, will lay his out there like a cagey veteran coach.
Prince Avenue Christian should be seen as the team to beat in the Georgia High School Association’s Class A private this year.
“With me, I wouldn’t say I have big goals,” Vandagriff said. “Just several sub-goals on the way. The first thing is just to win every week. Then you have got to win the region. Then the first playoff game and then to take it one week at a time.”
But he did keep it real after hitting with pinpoint accuracy on all those coachspeak and dry QB cliches. It is the reason why he lifts all those weights. His name is atop the charts for the bench press (315) and power clean (305) categories in the Prince Avenue Christian weight room.
He’s also third with a 415-pound squat.
“To win a state championship that would be insane,” Vandagriff said. “Thas been something me and my Dad have we dreamed about since I was little. If that happened, I think it would be a great story.”
The reality of his senior year has sunk it.
“Within the last couple of weeks me and my Dad and have talked,” Brock Vandagriff said. “My pastor and I have talked in bible study. They have said this is a last ride for real and December comes you are no longer a high school student-athlete at Prince Avenue. I’m just really living in the moment, working out every morning, giving as much as I can to the team hoping to win a state championship.”
Want an early preview of this week’s Prince Avenue Christian-Rabun County game? Those two schools led by 5-star QBs will face off at 8 p.m. on ESPNU from Rabun County on Friday night.
Vandagriff shared his early thoughts on the showdown with 5-star South Carolina commit Gunner Stockton during his DawgNation conversation below.
SENTELL’S INTEL
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