If there was ever a question as to who will be Georgia’s starting quarterback this fall, head coach Kirby Smart nipped that in the bud during his press conference following Saturday’s G-Day game when asked.
Stetson Bennett will be that man. No shock there.
“You said it, so there you go. You said it. I don’t have to say it,” Smart told a reporter. “Our team knows that Stetson is the quarterback. Stetson has done an incredible job. Stetson has been an incredible leader, done what we’ve asked. But you know what? Those other two guys have also done a tremendous job. I think if you ask them, they are really comfortable back there in the bullpen throwing the ball. … Stetson knows where he stands on our team.”
Bennett completed 15 of 35 passes for 273 yards and three touchdowns for the Black team offense.
He shrugged when asked to give an assessment of his play.
“It was alright. I started hot, but the way spring games work with so many switch-ups, sometimes it messes with your flow,” Bennett said. “There was a lot of good and bad, but we’ll go back and watch and see what we need can do.”
Meanwhile, Carson Beck and Brock Vandagriff quarterbacked both the Red and the Black teams. Beck completed 14 of 25 passes for 284 yards with Vandagriff combining to complete 12 of 26 passes for 115 yards. Early enrollee Gunner Stockton completed 1 of 3 for nine yards.
“This really wasn't a shot-type day because it wasn't a play action-type day. It was a dropback pass-type day. And those guys executed well and made some plays," Smart said. "They really, all three, got so much better through the spring -- just the growth within the offense. You see so much promise in each one of them."
It’s certainly a new position that Bennett finds himself in from a year ago.
This time last season, Bennett was not even Georgia’s No. 2 quarterback. That job belonged to Beck as the top backup to JT Daniels. One year later, Beck is the backup and Daniels is playing for West Virginia.
Bennett was asked if he felt more relaxed this spring knowing there’s been no need to look over his shoulder.
“I guess it’s relaxed in that way but it’s less relaxed in the sense that I’m going to be running the offense for the University of Georgia,” Bennett said. “You’ve kind of got to understand the severity of that and how are going to be the best that we can be. So, it’s more relaxed with one and not with the other.”
For example:
“It’s kind of like when you’ve got a brand-new car, you own it and you want to make sure that the engine is clean, that you change the oil, you get gas in it, make sure the brakes are checked … just make sure everything is running properly.”
There were some occasional hiccups, in the form of several batted balls. Bennett also had a pass picked off in the end zone by David Daniel, before ultimately leading the Black team on the game-winning drive that Jared Zirkel capped with a 27-yard field goal.
“That happened two years ago at Bama when I had some balls knocked down all those passes and everybody made a big hoopla about that and nobody really blocked my passes last year,” Bennett said. “But I don’t think about it. Maybe there’s something the O-line can do to bring them down, punch them in the stomach or something like that. I’ll leave that to them. But yeah, they did, and it did kind of get frustrating, and pissed me off a little bit. But we ended up going down and scoring. So, I won’t be thinking about that this off-season.”
