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Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops wasn’t surprised by Brock Vandafriff’s debut last Saturday night.

The Georgia transfer threw for 169 yards and two touchdowns, both career highs, in the Wildcats’ 31-0 win over Southern Mississippi in his first career collegiate start. He played in 13 games at Georgia the past two seasons, but appeared in a backup role with the Bulldogs.

“I think he made very good decisions.” Stoops said Monday. “I thought he played like I thought he would play. I had a lot of confidence in him going into the game and I think he delivered.”

Stoops hopes the trend continues when the Wildcats (1-0) take on South Carolina (1-0) in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams Saturday at Kroger Field.

Despite Vandagriff’s impressive showing in a lightening-shortened season opener that lasted just two quarters and six minutes, Stoops added that Vandagriff wasn’t perfect, but can build off the performance against the Golden Eagles.

“He’ll be the first to admit that there’s things that we need to improve on,” Stoops said. “But, I thought his pocket awareness was very good. In practice, that’s hard to simulate all of that all the time. But, the fact that he could step up and scramble when he had to scrap, buy time to throw the ball, throw in rhythm and on time.

“He did all those things. He’s not going to be perfect — no quarterback is with all that decision-making. There’s a lot that goes on.”

After Vandagriff entered the transfer portal following two seasons with the Bulldogs, Stoops and his staff gleaned his performances at Georgia on tape and the Kentucky coach admitted he “probably had more film on Brock than there was on Will Levis.”

“We did put a lot of faith and confidence in Brock because we believed in him,” Stoops said. “What we did see on film, we liked — he’s coming from a program you know how well-coached he was and how complex they are are.

“They’re not just good players. They’re very well-coached and when we were taking somebody like Brock, you saw his operation. You saw the way he was coached. You saw the way he played in high school. You felt pretty good about it.”

Stoops also liked the way first-year Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan “found a nice mixture” in his debut as the team’s play-caller.

“We created some explosives, but we also moved the ball and the tempo in the operation was better,” Stoops said. “It wasn’t perfect by any stretch. … There is quite a bit that goes on pre-snap with our offense and coach Bush talks about that constantly.

“We have to win the pre-snap because there’s a lot going on with formations, motions, shifts and then executing. If you can do that effectively, it puts a pressure on some guys. “

At one point, Hamdan ran three straight plays with Vandagriff throwing the ball downfield, displaying his desire to produce explosive plays on the offensive side of the football.

“I loved it and I loved the way attacked it and went at it,” Stoops said. “That’s not always going to happen or anything like that, but you have to mix things up.”