Stetson Bennett knows how the business works.

He's aware that college football is a game built on highly rated recruits. Those players, especially at programs like Georgia and Alabama, get the first cracks at playing time over walk-ons.

As a former walk-on himself, Bennett gets it. But as his roller-coaster college football journey continues, he and his lowly recruiting ranking have the Bulldogs one win away from a national championship.

Bennett's story has been told countless times by now. He came to Georgia as a walk-on in 2017, transferred to junior college following that season, and then returned in 2019 on scholarship.

During a College Football Playoff press conference on Monday, Bennett went as in-depth as he ever has on recruiting rankings and what they mean in college football. He fielded a question about coaches saying recruiting stars don't matter.

"Coaches say that, but it's, like, (five-stars) are going to get every opportunity to fail before a walk-on gets an opportunity to succeed. I'll put it that way," Bennett said. "It's just business. If you recruit all these five stars and then you play walk-ons over every single one of them, who's to say the next five star is not going to see that and not come here?"

Bennett added that typically, five-stars turn out to be better players than walk-ons. They generally earn those lofty rankings for a reason.

Georgia's signal-caller said the Bulldog players do a good job of ignoring recruiting rankings as much as possible once they get to campus. But Bennett's origin story has been brought up many times over the past two years as he's started 15 games for the Bulldogs.

Offensive coordinator Todd Monken said last week that many, including himself, have "undervalued" Bennett at times. So Bennett ran with his opportunity when JT Daniels went down with an injury.

For his part, Bennett has grown leaps and bounds as a quarterback from last year to this. He credits Monken for playing a large role in that, even during the times when Bennett didn't have the starting job.

"Just listening to him talk in the meetings, that's invaluable," Bennett said. "That's why he gets paid what he gets paid, just to talk to people like us, to make us better and obviously to play hard. But just sitting there trying to be a sponge, trying to write down everything I can write down, trying to learn from somebody who's been in this business for 35 years at the highest level."

The past two games have been up and down for Bennett. He had good moments in the SEC Championship Game against Alabama. But he also missed some throws and fired off a pair of interceptions.

Bennett said he didn't doubt himself at all following the Alabama game. He realized he made some errors that can't happen again. But he also felt he made some strong throws and good decisions.

Going into the Orange Bowl against Michigan, he focused on eliminating the mistakes while also continuing to do what he's done well all season. Bennett followed up the SEC Championship loss with an offensive MVP performance against the Wolverines, completing 20-of-30 passes for 313 yards and three touchdowns.

Now, the kid from Blackshear has the Bulldogs within 60 minutes of their first national championship since 1980. Bennett knows there are all kinds of pressure surrounding this contest, but he's trying to prepare like it's any other game.

"Do I know that means a lot to a lot of people? Yes. Am I trying to play some kind of savior by winning a national championship for millions of people? No. I don't think that's my job," Bennett said. "My job is to go out there and throw completions to very talented people we have on this team. And I think it's as simple as that."