We Need to See College Qbs Flaunting Their Bellybuttons Once Again Like in the Old Days

At that place are people freshly doubting Stetson Bennett, and let me tell you that this comes every bit a revelation to the Georgia quarterback. What a shock. Similar, this has never happened before—other than at every single step of his college journeying, starting the day he reported to the locker room in Athens.

The boldness was immediate.

Bennett's locker assignment when he joined the squad in 2022 equally a walk-on: No. 122A. His walk-on roommate was 122B. In other words, they shared the same locker. The scholarship guys weren't sharing infinite like that.

His assigned jersey number: 22, which could have been construed every bit a less-than-subtle invitation to change positions. Or quit.

Bennett has thrown 24 touchdowns this season, confronting seven interceptions.

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"That sucked," Bennett says with a laugh. "I mean, talk nearly a humbling experience. I was the rare quarterback who was excited to be on the sentry team then I could vesture the other team'southward quarterback number. At least and then I looked like an bodily quarterback and non an idiot."

So delight alibi Bennett if he fails to despair when informed that, heading into the Orangish Bowl Playoff semifinal against Michigan on Friday, some people do not believe he is upward to the task of quarterbacking these Bulldogs to the national title. He's been paddling upstream in the fast-flowing River of Doubt for years now, without a hint of fatigue.

Every single time Bennett was expected to exist brushed aside, to accept life as a fill-in to the many highly-rated QBs who have come and gone at Georgia, he has just paddled harder and returned to the top of the depth nautical chart. As an under-recruited outlier on a roster flush with blue-chip talent, Bennett's persistent starting status has produced some downright nasty reactions in a fan base starving for a national title. The product of Blackshear, Ga., could do some remarkable readings of mean tweets in his southern lilt.

"If my mom said it, it would hurt my feelings," Bennett says. "Simply these guys—the Twitter guys, or whatever they are—I don't pay ii cents to 'em. Just information technology is weird, though. They're like, fans of the squad, and some of them are wishing I get hurt or something. I'm like, 'Adept Lord, I'grand glad I'one thousand non in your family, because you sound like a miserable person.'

"I'm not a big revenge guy. I don't think you tin want to get revenge and say you don't care what people say. Those ii things don't go together. I don't care what they say, then I don't have to prove them wrong or anything like that."

The River of Dubiety has reached a alluvion stage now, though. Bennett is coming off his worst starting operation of the year on the biggest phase to date. He threw 2 interceptions and was dramatically outplayed by Alabama freshman Bryce Immature in the Southeastern Conference title game. After Georgia'south first loss of the season, it didn't have long for the biggest reason for defeat—Georgia'southward top-ranked defense being shockingly strafed—to give way to renewed skepticism almost Bennett's ability confronting elite competition.

All season, he'd been plenty good enough when the Bulldogs were throttling opposing offenses. But what happens when the defense isn't bulletproof? What happens when Georgia isn't dictating terms? What happens if (when) it needs to win a shootout?

Is Stetson Bennett still good enough in those scenarios?

Bennett and Georgia had their worst game of the season in the Bulldogs' SEC championship game loss to Alabama.

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He got a strong vote of confidence Tuesday from offensive coordinator Todd Monken. In Monken'south first press availability since preseason—it'due south a Kirby Smart affair, which is to say that it's an caused Nick Saban affair—he was all-in on Bennett.

"At that place's no dubiousness in my listen we can win the national championship," Monken says. "There's no doubtfulness in my mind we can win it with Stetson Bennett."

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Monken has seen Bennett put himself on track to go Georgia's single-flavour laissez passer efficiency leader—even with the functioning confronting Alabama. Bennett's current efficiency rating is 176.85, a smidge better than the schoolhouse record of 174.82 set by Aaron Murray in 2012. He'southward also just ahead of Murray'southward career efficiency marker, but Bennett figures to have some other season in a Georgia uniform in '22, so that remains to be seen.

Regardless of the record book, Bennett had a very good regular season. Even if it was largely in a complementary role to a slap-up defense, he routinely made large plays passing and running when called upon.

"If you lot look at the plays he'due south made, he's made national championship plays," Monken says. "He has. You turn on the film and look at some of the throws he makes, the decisions he makes, the things he does with his feet.

"Nosotros went into the [SEC] championship game with Stetson Bennett as our quarterback as a favorite over a team that hasn't been an underdog in over five years. That ought to tell y'all about our quarterback and how he played, and [for] some reason we become into this stereotyping of players based on where they were at some betoken—exist it ane was a walk-on, one was a five star, whatever. If you only look at the production and what he's washed for our football game squad, information technology'due south impressive."

More than anything, what Bennett has worked for at Georgia is the opportunity to step on the field without that stereotype following him. Call him a quarterback, not a former walk-on. Don't compare his recruiting rankings to Justin Fields or Jake Fromm or Jamie Newman or D'wan Mathis or JT Daniels or any of the more than celebrated QBs who have been ahead of him at some point in time—or repeated points in time—on the depth chart.

Bennett walked on at the in-state schoolhouse believing he belonged. That'due south why he turned down offers from smaller programs, to test his belief.

"I simply thought the path would be easier and the regret would be less to go hither [out of high schoolhouse], effort it out, see what happens," Bennett says. "Then I could go somewhere else if it didn't work out, rather than going to a smaller school, balling out, and never having that chance here. I didn't desire that regret."

Bennett wound up running the lookout man team criminal offense his freshman season, and did it well enough that it irritated Smart. Coaches want their scout teamers to give the starters a expert look at what the opposition volition be doing on Saturdays—but they also want to meet the starters dominate what is supposed to exist the lesser contest. Bennett sometimes made that difficult.

Bennett says the scout team record for "reloads"—when the jitney demands a play be run once again, until the starters win the rep—was 12 or 13. The graduate assistant in accuse of the sentinel team put together a video splice of "Kirb Stomps," with Smart throwing play sheets or storming effectually the do field in displeasure. The quarterback assigned jersey No. 22 enjoyed that video.

Just the path to playing time remained blocked when Fields came to Georgia every bit the No. one quarterback prospect in the nation, and then Bennett transferred to Jones County Junior College in Mississippi. After one season there, he was prepared to sign with Louisiana when Georgia came calling over again on National Signing Solar day with an offer to come dorsum on scholarship.

"I'd already made my mind upward," Bennett says.

Georgia said it needed a decision immediately. Bennett resisted.

"I'm not going to requite you an answer now," he recalls saying. "Because it's a pretty big determination. Y'all can hold that offering in your manus, or I'll just go to the schoolhouse I've already picked, because I was fine this morning time. I'm not going to come up crawling back on my knees."

Bennett consulted his parents, Stetson III and Denise, both of whom are Georgia graduates. Denise was against his return, Stetson III was in favor. Stetson Iv had always wanted to be a Bulldog, but he wasn't interested in just wearing the uniform and property a clipboard or signaling in plays.

"I'm not going to sit here and exist a frat child on the football team," he says. "I'k going to go play football."

Bennett pays no mind to social media negativity from Bulldogs fans nearly his play.

Bob Self/Florida Times-Union/United states of america TODAY NETWORK

Knowing that Fields was transferring, Bennett figured Fromm would turn pro later the 2022 season and he could, at last, take a shot at playing football. He even started some games later on Fromm was banged up, and acquitted himself well. The conclusion to come back to Georgia was based on having ii years as the starter if he won the position, and he believed he earned that shot.

"I played all my cards on Fromm leaving, and it made me look like a smart man," Bennett says, then laughs. "And then this whole fiasco happened."

The "fiasco" began with Newman and Daniels both transferring in for the 2022 flavor, from Wake Woods and USC, respectively. But Newman opted out earlier the season began and Daniels was all the same rehabbing a knee joint injury, so Bennett figured he had his shot.

That didn't come to pass immediately. Georgia went with Mathis at first. He was ineffective, to say the least, and Smart turned to Bennett while the Bulldogs fan base impatiently waited for Daniels to be cleared and take over.

"It was tough at some points," Bennett says. "I've always been the guy to simply say, 'Requite me a run a risk.' If somebody beats me out, that's fine. I wasn't given a take chances when I was told I would get one. I was like, 'Good lord, what am I doing here? We've got a 5th-string condom taking more reps than me and I've started four–5 games here.' That was hard to become through, only I leaned on my family and they helped me get through it."

Bennett played poorly in a three-game stretch of 2022 that included losses to eventual national champion Alabama and eventual Due east Division winner Florida. The position at concluding brutal to Daniels for the terminal 4 games of the season, and that'southward the way 2022 began likewise.

Daniels started the opener against Clemson, a 10–iii defensive slog in which neither team scored an offensive touchdown. Just he came out of that game with an oblique injury, which put Bennett back in the starting lineup against UAB. He responded with 5 touchdown passes on 12 attempts, a dazzling performance that didn't change the equation; Daniels returned to the starting job for the adjacent ii games.

Only Daniels was injure again in the victory over Vanderbilt, and Bennett has endemic the position since then. He was great in a succession of high-profile games against Arkansas, Auburn and Kentucky, and so good enough in a blowout of Florida—particularly when he followed an anxiety-inducing interception with a touchdown bomb to Kearis Jackson on his adjacent pass.

Later that series of plays, a family friend texted Stetson III: "You amend hope Stet never commits a offense, because he has nada remorse."

Mostly, Bennett has a limitless reservoir of internal conviction—possibly even borderline cockiness. Just he'southward likewise a stern self-critic.

At the end of that freshman season running the lookout man team, he went back and watched the film from those practices. "I wanted to see how good I was, pat myself on the dorsum," Bennett says. "So I looked at it and I was similar, 'Wow, I was pretty awful.'"

Applying that unsparing lens yr over year has led to significant improvement. Critics who disparaged Bennett'southward ability to stretch the field vertically early in his career should know that he's 2d in the nation in yards per effort, at ten.ane. Critics who questioned whether a QB listed at 5' 11" can get the job done should know that he's run for 251 yards this season as an underrated dual threat.

Fifty-fifty as Georgia has built a 12–1 record, the shadow of Daniels (No. 18) has loomed over Bennett's starting job.

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He's just been a much meliorate quarterback in 2022 than he was in the previous two seasons. Fewer bad decisions, more than good ones.

Then came the tape-scratch functioning against Alabama. And then came the COVID-19 omicron variant, which sent Daniels into quarantine and has kept him out of practice heading into the Orangish Bowl (Daniels arrived in Miami on Monday evening). Fans anticipating that Bennett could be benched—or at least confront a quick hook—in favor of Daniels had to re-set expectations yet once again. This is the noise Bennett is tuning out.

"I wouldn't heed to myself if I was giving a speech on center surgery," he says. "Non comparing football to middle surgery, but information technology'due south the same kind of gist. And then why would I mind to somebody who doesn't practise this for a living and just watches information technology happen? All I'1000 thinking nearly is beating Michigan and being the best quarterback I tin exist for my teammates."

It looks certain Stetson Bennett will start against Michigan, and increasingly likely that he will finish as well. He has to handle the pressure—both in theory and literally, with All-American defensive ends Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo coming at him off the border. He has to exist good plenty, every bit a old walk-on surrounded by iv-star and five-star recruits on what might be the most talented team in the country. He has to go along paddling upstream in the fast-flowing River of Doubt.

More College Football Coverage:

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• Rick Motion-picture show Lost a Son. At Cincy, He Institute New Purpose

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Source: https://www.si.com/college/2021/12/29/stetson-bennett-georgia-quarterback

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