#2 Surprise in Lexington

[18IsTheMan]

My biggest in-game surprise was how bad Vandagriff was. Yes, he was pressured essentially the entire game, but he thoroughly wilted under the pressure.

My second biggest surprise was not hearing Deone Walker's name all game long. He was quite literally ALL over the place in our game last year, and harassed us on seemingly every down. I think I recall them mentioning him once early in the game this year. He probably played a role in limiting our run game, but I don't really recall any major plays on his part. Maybe I missed some. But he wasn't nearly the factor he was last year.

 

[kidrobinski]

Any qb without elite escapability has to have time; witness Rattler the past two years. When you take the snap and the first thing you see is the opponent jerseys in your face, all of the mantra like progressions, step up in pocket, awareness, the play itself, all the other stuff that fans take for gospel goes out the window. I thought he showed a couple of pretty good throws.

 

[18IsTheMan]

Any qb without elite escapability has to have time; witness Rattler the past two years. When you take the snap and the first thing you see is the opponent jerseys in your face, all of the mantra like progressions, step up in pocket, awareness, the play itself, all the other stuff that fans take for gospel goes out the window. I thought he showed a couple of pretty good throws.

Rattler was one of the most pressured QBs in college football last year, and he does not have elite escapability, yet he still managed to complete 69% of his passes. In fact, that's what stood out the most about Rattler's game: how well he handled the pressure. Granted, he was a 5th year player and Vandagriff is basically a rookie.

Vandagriff might have gotten off a couple nice passes, but he only had 3 completions for the game, so...... And, as has been noted by several commentators, even when he wasn't pressured, he was off target for the most part.

Is he likely a better QB than he showed on Saturday? Sure. Is he ever going to live up to his recruiting ranking? Probably not. I know we might feel the need to build Vandagriff up now for fear that acknowledging he played terribly takes something way from our DL.

But both things can be true. Our DL played great and Vandagriff was terrible. Oddly, from all I'm reading online, inside and outside of Lexington, the only ones talking up Vandagriff are Gamecock fans, lol.