So: You’re a world-class techno-weapons designer. Work with me here.

You spend years assembling a deadly, nuclear satellite munition. Even its smallest parts are precision-engineered. Let’s call them five-star parts.

This weapon should make history–it could incinerate large asteroids or attacking mother ships. So you take it for its trial run. The worldwide planetary defense community is watching. You flick the lever and hold your breath.

It sputters. Burps. Sends out a ray that fails to knock down a housefly.

You turn, smile nervously, and say, “Just warming up.”

But it gets worse. Your expensive weapon coughs, belches, and is no more lethal than an old lady slapping you with her umbrella. The key element—let’s call it the “Illudium Q-36 space modulator”—is malfunctioning.

Of course it’s malfunctioning. This is 2020. What could be more 2020 than your Illudium Q-36 space modulator not functioning?

But there’s no time for kvetching over the cosmic injustice of it all. Your downcast eyes spot a small, discarded something-or-other, lying in the dust. You pull the bubble gum out of your mouth and jury-rig this doohickey. Because why not. It’s 2020. Nothing matters anyway.

And who’da thunk it? The entire machine begins to purr, to emit an awe-inspiring laser beam. The spare, ten-cent widget drives the whole assembly, and you're able to blow a serious dent in the moon. Everyone applauds! You spent millions on all these parts, but it was a plastic whatzit and a mouthful of Bazooka Joe that rescued your techno-butt.

THAT'S what just happened.

Lately, Georgia football has collected five-star quarterbacks the way your drunk cousin collects exotic beer cans. The Bulldogs have gathered Eason, Fromm, Fields, Newman, and Daniels, pro prospects all. Problem is, QBs are like wild stallions. They can’t be broken and pastured. They must run free.

One goes pro, and then there were three.

One opts out, and then there were two.

One gets dinged, and then . . . horrors! A mere four-star will have to suffice. Well, sigh, maybe this one time.

Then, alas, it turns out the four-star wasn’t quite ready to shine. At least not today.

No worries. Just plug in the two-star, with a little gum and scotch tape. Just the way Kirby Smart and Todd Monken drew it up in the game plan, right? It’s Peak 2020 stuff, really. Georgia Football just spent $3.7 million on recruiting in the last fiscal year, then relied on the Blackshear kid who had offers from Mercer, Columbia, and Middle Tennessee State. Who made his name with the Jones College Bobcats in 2018.

It happens. This is a game; not, um, rocket science. It came to pass with Joe Cox vs. Colorado in 2006. We’ll live to see it again.

Even so, what Stetson Bennett IV achieved, in the heat of battle, makes him a proverbial Damn Good Dawg in the forever column. The PFF service evaluates his total offensive rating as 88.9, which places his performance Saturday in the elite category. Grade-wise, he was Top Dawg on this day. Across the roster, no one save Nakobe Dean and Adam Anderson—both five-stars—even approached that number.

Yes, Bennett did it against an adequacy-challenged opponent—but so did everybody else in red pants.

Georgia’s special teams were already functioning well when Bennett came in. The defense was piling up three-and-outs, despite giving up an early touchdown that seemed all the more devastating in the light of UGA’s impotent offense.

But once Bennett settled in, all facets of Georgia’s game felt different—more intimidating. The defense claimed a pick-six. Special teams (Zeus!) blocked a punt. The offensive line began opening the holes it couldn’t manage before, and no more passes were dropped. Penalties even dried up. The first half water pistol became a second half nuclear weapon.

None of which assures peace on earth, good will to fans. More alien invasions are on the horizon, and far more frightening ones. The quick fix may not be a permanent fix. But on Saturday, it flipped the script in such a way as to restore hope and buy precious time.

For Stetson Bennett, a few minutes of playing time is equivalent to many decades in Dawg years. That’s how long we’ll remember the day a two-star spare part made a five-star weapon truly dangerous.