The Journey of Stetson Bennett: – Bing video
By Jeff Sentell, DawgNation Staff
Posted September 27, 2020
Stetson Bennett’s story is the stuff of Hollywood to everyone except Stetson Bennett (saturdaydownsouth.com)
Stetson Bennett IV (dawgnation.com)
The real story here, as his first cousin ~ once removed put it, have you read that story about Stetson Bennett IV yet?
It just might take a minute for even a fast-moving chronicle to get there, but the journey matters. That’s because Georgia has always allowed Bennett a chance to dream.
He’s seen the Bulldogs play about 115 times now. At least.
The book on Bennett keeps finding chapter after chapter. Even when every door seems
to close for the 5-foot-11 quarterback. Those that know and love “Stet” still likely doubt
if anybody wants to read about a short QB. It was triggered by a young man who grew
up dreaming of pulling out wins in Sanford Stadium.
The Bennett family has filled the seats of their season tickets since 1996.
We can recall a story shared about how Richard LeCounte III
Georgia star safety Richard LeCounte declares for 2021 NFL Draft (usatoday.com)
Richard LeCounte III sat in Kirby Smart’s office years ago. He stumped for Bennett to be added to the program in his class, too. He’d dueled with the kid from Pierce County and knew what he could do. “Stet” hung 369 yards on LeCounte’s team in his senior year. “That would be huge for us to get him at Georgia,” LeCounte said way back in December of 2016. “Huge. You know why? Because I wouldn’t want to play against him if he was the quarterback on the other team coming in to face Georgia.”
It was fitting to see those two linked as the guys who pulled out that win in Fayetteville. Those two were the player representatives to the media after that comeback win. But the LeCounte story on Stet also sits three or four times removed from the “just feels right” satisfying story with Bennett. It is not Jamie Newman opting out. Or JT Daniels waiting on the good word with the knee. This isn’t even D’Wan Mathis looking like he just played (and started) his first college game on the road in the SEC. Which he did.
But there are little things that need to show up here. Bennett left Georgia after the spring game in 2018. He was smart enough to know his dream to wrestle the reins of the offense away from both Jake Fromm and Justin Fields was not going to fly.
Walk-ons just don’t do that.
Not even in a Disney script.
This quote from Bennett in May of 2018 validates why.
“The dream is to play,” Bennett said. “It was cool being at Georgia. I loved sharing those moments at Georgia last year but the dream is to play. It just wasn’t the same growing up as a boy who wanted to play at Georgia if you are not out there. That’s the thing. It was cool. I would love to be the starting quarterback at the University of Georgia. But just being there and being on the team, that’s not good enough for me.”
“I’m going to go play somewhere,” Bennett said. “I think that’s evolved to more of the dream than just being somewhere at a place because you grew up loving it. I think now the dream is to go play and go win championships somewhere. That’s what I feel like. I am going to chase that dream now.” He was older than Fromm and Fields back then. But that was a chase for another zip code. No matter how many nice things LeCounte and Kirby Smart and Roquan Smith and Mel Tucker said.
Rerouted: That dream led “The Mailman” to a junior college
We’ll ask if you’ve made it this far to hang a bit longer. Got to squeeze three chapters into one. Most of us have heard at least one story about a South Georgia boy made good by now. Even if he is the son of two pharmacists and no longer a dirt poor farm boy. He was dubbed “The MailMan” in high school because he traveled more than 4,000 miles going to prospect camps hoping to be seen.
Here’s just the first part of the reason why Stetson Bennett IV was dubbed “The Mailman” while in high school. He wore a U.S. Postal Service cap, but that name stuck because he was always getting the ball out in time. But that’s the “MailMan” stories for those who didn’t know him first before all those “Opening” camps.
His center at Pierce County High School gave him that hat.
His father was the mayor of a small town in South Georgia.
He wore it to the camp and former Georgia commit and current Seattle Seahawk Deejay Dallas put that picture flush left on Instagram and called him either “The MailMan” or “The Postman” the first time.
It stuck after that.
His strengths have always been accuracy, timing and mobility. Bennett was rated a 2-star recruit in high school. He passed up a few scholarship opportunities in order to walk-on at UGA. He had full rides to go play at Mercer, Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss and The Ivy League, too. Bennett was a scout team star at Georgia during the 2017 season but knew he was not getting by Fromm and Fields.
He tried his hand at a Mississippi junior college. It was a little hit-or-miss.
Bennett finished the 2018 season at Jones leading the program to a 10-2 record. He completed 145 of his 259 passes for 1840 yards with 16 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. That was good for a 56 percent completion rate. Those Mississippi junior colleges have a great reputation as springboards for careers. But most might not know that those schools are allowed so many out-of-state signees. Those that exhaust those limits on offensive linemen wind up looking at the wrong side of the scoreboard.
That knowledge there adds a little to that oft-putting JUCO stat line. Those scholarships go to the players who either harass the quarterbacks or make them look good. Not the ones who will give them time to think in a not-so-clean pocket. But he still found scholarship offers to play at Georgia and Louisiana-Lafayette coming out of the Jones County Community College.
When Fields left Georgia, it created a void for quarterbacks. Specifically in the short term. Ole Miss sophomore John Rhys Plumlee was still committed, but could not enroll early. Smart needed someone who could join Mathis behind Fromm for spring practice in 2019. Bennett already knew the offense. The chance to come home was too hard to resist. He came back. With the belief that he could push Fromm as a clear backup. It seemed like Fromm would only have one more season. Bennett scored a 30 on his ACT in high school. It has a decision made maybe with equal parts head and heart.
But things have changed a lot since December of 2018.
Fromm is in the NFL. Newman is gone. Daniels waits on a clearance.
Mathis needs more game reps that may be hard to come by on a viable title contender amid perhaps the toughest schedule in UGA history.
When the name Stetson Bennett IV pops up, it creates the wrong impression. The thought of a Southern farm and property lines that go farther than the eye can see. The story here is about poor dirt farm boys and a clear “you don’t say” connection to a Georgia victory against the University of Arkansas. His grandfather coached defensive backs for Frank Broyles at Arkansas in 1971 and 1972. Of all things.
He was also the secondary coach on Bill Battle’s Tennessee staff in 1970. Google it. “Bennett’s Bandits” was a thing back in his day. It made pulling out a win at Arkansas a very special place to do it. “Just thankful the Lord gave him the opportunity to show the world how much heart and hard work matter,” his father Stetson Bennett III said on Saturday night.
“If you were to measure his heart, it would be over six feet.”
But there’s one more very good part. Probably the best part.
His grandfather is the late Richard “Buddy” Bennett. That’s what it says in
the Arkansas and Tennessee football media guides. Not Stetson Bennett Jr.
This Facebook post from Vi Bennett certainly adds some oomph to
Stetson Bennett comeback story at Arkansas. (Vi Bennett/Facebook)
Vi Bennett explained why on Facebook on Saturday night.
Because so many people had asked.
Her father was Stetson Bennett Jr, but she was the youngest of his three girls. She wrote that when it was clear her “Mama and Daddy” would have no more children, her father was asked by her uncle if his next son could be named Stetson Bennett III. Because that is what salt-of-the-earth folks from South Georgia do. Especially when they want a name to carry on to the next generation.
“The Bennett family owes so much to the opportunities the game of football has given to us,” Vi Bennett wrote. “In the last 40s and 50s, poor dirt farm boys had very few chances to advance their education beyond high school (if that) unless you could play football.” “Today one of the progenies of those poor dirt farmers gave back to that game that gave the Bennett family so much. Stetson Bennett IV, you have made us proud and I am honored to call you my cousin.” Steady Stetson Bennett directs Georgia football 37-0 win over Arkansas
Arkansas Razorbacks at Georgia Bulldogs | Full Game Highlights.
Stetson Bennett’s Win over Arkansas – Bing video
ATHENS — Stetson Bennett knew the assignment and was ready to carry out his duties, living up to his “Mailman” nickname by delivering once again. Bennett was 7-of-11 passing for 72 yards and carried 3 times for 16 yards in Georgia’s 37-0 win over Arkansas on Saturday. To think, Bennett wasn’t even sure about returning to Georgia this season.
Mike Griffith, DawgNation Staff
“You don’t play football forever, and you’d like to play football when you can play football,” Bennett said. “It was a tough decision, probably one of the hardest that I ever made. It was tough and, in the end, I broke it down and I decided to stay.” Georgia proved again on Saturday why Georgia is fortunate he did decide to remain with the program. The Bulldogs fans didn’t learn Bennett would make his second start this season in place of injured incumbent JT Daniels (lat) until shortly before the game when his name was flashed on the JumboTron.
Georgia fans cheered their approval, most all recognizing how Bennett has grown into a reliable option at the position.” “I was the starter the whole week — JT (Daniels) had something going on with him, so since Monday,” Bennett said, asked when he knew he would start against the Razorbacks in the Top 10 showdown at Sanford Stadium.
The Bulldogs (5-0) pounded the ball in the Razorbacks (4-1) three-man front all day to the tune of 57 carries for 273 yards and 3 rushing touchdowns.
That was fine with Bennett, who has supplanted Carson Beck as Georgia’s No. 2 quarterback for the foreseeable future. “My job is team first, (so) whatever it takes for us to win, that’s what I’m going to do and that’s what everybody else on this team is going to do,” Bennett said. “That’s what I think makes this year, this team, very special.” Coach Kirby Smart said he believes the offense’s ability to adjust to what the defense is giving is also one of the special qualities of this team.
Bennett, who had a shifty 9-yard scramble to set up a touchdown, said the game plan was obvious from the onset. “We knew we were going to have to deal with the defense that they run, I mean, they drop eight every play,” Bennett said. “We knew, the offensive line knew, the running backs knew, the wide receivers knew, the tight ends knew that their job this week was to run the ball and that’s what we did.
“They were basically challenging us can we run the ball and they were saying we couldn’t and we were saying we could today.” Bennett improved to 5-2 as Georgia’s starting quarterback with the win over Arkansas, the second time he has faced the Hogs. Bennett, of course, was 20-of-29 passing for 211 yards and 2 touchdowns in Georgia’s 37-10 win over Arkansas last season.
And yet, Bennett said, he’s a much better quarterback than a season ago. “A lot different, so much more sure,” Bennett said. “So much more control over the offense, more knowing what the defense is going to do, knowing what Coach Monken is thinking in specific situations, just a much better football player.” It was not the brain surgery comeback Hollywood script, but that Bennett chapter still just feels right in its own way.
“Go Dawgs!”
Stetson Bennett Silences the Skeptics as Georgia Finally Vanquishes Alabama
By MICHAEL ROSENBERG
The quarterback rebounded from disaster and a dominant defense did the rest as the Bulldogs, at last, won the elusive big one.
GEORGIA’S STETSON BENNETT COMPLETES ALL-TIME JOURNEY (NYPOST.COM)
STETSON BENNETT IS A PRETTY GOOD PASSER AND ATHLETE WITH MOXIE, BUT COMPARED TO THE REST OF THE STARTERS FOR GEORGIA AND ALABAMA, HE LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING A TODDLER MIGHT CLING TO AS SHE SLEEPS. MOST QUARTERBACKS GET SACKED; BENNETT GETS FLUNG. BUT MOST QUARTERBACKS DON’T WIN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR THEIR HOME-STATE TEAM, AND BENNETT JUST DID.
GEORGIA DID IT, FINALLY, BUT FINALLY IS ALL THAT MATTERS. THE BULLDOGS WON THEIR FIRST NATIONAL TITLE SINCE 1980, AND WHILE THERE WERE LONG STRETCHES OF UNCERTAINTY IN THEIR 33–18 VICTORY OVER ALABAMA, BY THE END IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT GEORGIA WAS THE MOST WORTHY TEAM. ALABAMA COACH NICK SABAN SAID IT HIMSELF: GEORGIA WAS THE MOST CONSISTENT TEAM ALL SEASON.
“THEY DESERVE IT,” SABAN SAID. “THEY PLAYED GREAT ALL YEAR.”
SMART FINALLY BEAT SABAN, HIS OLD BOSS.
DARRON CUMMINGS/AP
THIS WAS THE VISION KIRBY SMART BROUGHT TO ATHENS WHEN HE TOOK OVER HIS ALMA MATER IN 2016. HE WOULD BLEND EVERYTHING HE LEARNED UNDER SABAN AT ALABAMA WITH EVERYTHING HE BELIEVED GEORGIA SHOULD BE.
IN THE 41 YEARS SINCE GEORGIA’S LAST TITLE, COLLEGE FOOTBALL BECAME LESS REGIONALIZED AND MORE PROFESSIONALIZED. SMART HAS MASTERED THE SOPHISTICATED AND WHIRLWIND MODERN RECRUITING GAME, BUT HE REMAINS A SON OF GEORGIA AND HAS RETAINED HIS SENSE OF PLACE. HE SAID AFTER BEATING ALABAMA THAT WHEN HE GOT OUT OF HIS HOTEL ELEVATOR ON THE 15TH FLOOR THIS WEEK, HE SAW LEGENDARY GEORGIA COACH VINCE DOOLEY SITTING ON A BENCH IN THE HALLWAY.
“GOD PUT HIM THERE,” SMART SAID.
WHY GOD HAD TUA TAGOVAILOA COMPLETE THAT PASS ON SECOND-AND-26 A FEW YEARS AGO, SMART DID NOT SAY. BUT NEVER MIND THAT. THIS IS THE KIND OF THING YOU CAN SAY WHEN YOU WIN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP AT YOUR ALMA MATER.
SMART BUILT A DOMINANT DEFENSE THAT IS EVERY BIT AS IMPRESSIVE AS THE ONES WE USUALLY SEE FROM SABAN. ALABAMA RAN THE BALL 28 TIMES IN THIS GAME … FOR 30 YARDS. LEAD BACK BRIAN ROBINSON JR., WHO COULD GET FOUR YARDS AGAINST A PRIDE OF LIONS, AVERAGED 3.1 AGAINST GEORGIA.
THE LAST MEANINGFUL PLAY OF THE GAME SUMMED UP THE SMART ERA. ALABAMA WAS DRIVING FOR A POTENTIAL TYING TOUCHDOWN (THE TIDE WOULD HAVE HAD TO GO FOR TWO) WHEN KELEE RINGO INTERCEPTED A BRYCE YOUNG PASS. RINGO RETURNED IT 79 YARDS FOR THE SCORE, TURNING A TENSE GAME INTO A DOUBLE-DIGIT WIN. ALL THOSE YEARS OF WONDERING IF GEORGIA WOULD EVER BEAT ALABAMA AND WIN A NATIONAL TITLE, AND SUDDENLY IT HAPPENED ALL AT ONCE.
IF 1980 FELT LIKE A HUNDRED LIFETIMES AGO TO GEORGIA FANS … WELL, IT KIND OF WAS. COLLEGE FOOTBALL HAS CHANGED MORE DRAMATICALLY THAN JUST ABOUT ANY OTHER SPORT IN THAT TIME. AND YET, GEORGIA MANAGED TO WIN THIS TITLE WITH AN ANACHRONISM TAKING SNAPS.
ON A FIELD FULL OF FUTURE NFL STARTERS, BENNETT SOMEHOW MADE THE BIGGEST PLAY OF THE GAME FOR BOTH TEAMS. THE FIRST THREATENED TO DEFINE HIM. THE SECOND ONE WILL, EVERY TIME A BULLDOGS FAN SEES HIM WALKING DOWN A GEORGIA STREET.
THIS IS HOW YOU DON’T BEAT ALABAMA: BY TRYING TO CHUCK A PASS THAT HAS NO CHANCE OF LANDING IN A HAPPY PLACE, FUMBLING AS YOU TOSS IT, AND WATCHING IT BOUNCE AND LAND IN THE HANDS OF THE OPPOSING TEAM. THE CRIMSON TIDE’S BRIAN BRANCH DIDN’T SEEM TO REALIZE IT WAS A PASS AT ALL; HE CASUALLY MADE THE BIGGEST PLAY OF THE GAME TO THAT POINT, LIKE AN AGENT WHO THOUGHT HE WAS DEFUSING A FAKE BOMB FOR PRACTICE ONLY TO DISCOVER IT WAS A REAL ONE.
AND THIS IS HOW YOU DO BEAT ALABAMA: AFTER THE TIDE TURN YOUR MISTAKE INTO A TOUCHDOWN AND AN 18–13 LEAD, YOU TAKE YOUR TEAM ON TWO STRAIGHT TOUCHDOWN DRIVES. BENNETT COMPLETED ALL FOUR OF HIS OFFICIAL PASSES ON THOSE DRIVES, FOR 83 YARDS AND TWO PERFECT TOUCHDOWNS: A GORGEOUS 49-YARDER TO ADONAI MITCHELL, TO TAKE THE LEAD, AND A 15-YARDER TO BROCK BOWERS TO ADD TO IT. BENNETT ALSO DREW PASS INTERFERENCE PENALTIES TWO OTHER TIMES.
“WE WEREN’T GOING TO LET A TURNOVER LIKE THAT COST US A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP,” BENNETT SAID AFTERWARD. “I WASN’T GOING TO LET THAT HAPPEN. I WASN’T GOING TO BE THE REASON WE LOST TONIGHT.”
GEORGIA AVENGED A SLEW OF PAINFUL LOSSES TO THE TIDE—MOST RECENTLY IN DECEMBER’S SEC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME. FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS, AS KIRBY SMART REELED IN FIVE-STAR RECRUITS AND WON GAMES BY THE BUNCH, A NATIONAL TITLE SEEMED INEVITABLE ON MOST DAYS AND IMPOSSIBLE WHENEVER GEORGIA PLAYED ALABAMA. NICK SABAN FAMOUSLY BEATS ALL OF HIS OLD ASSISTANTS, AND SMART WAS NO EXCEPTION.
WERE THE TIDE IN THE BULLDOGS’ HEADS? IT’S EASY TO SAY NO NOW. BUT WITH EVERY ALABAMA WIN, IT SURE LOOKED LIKE IT. IN DECEMBER, GEORGIA LOOKED LIKE IT WAS RIDING FALSE CONFIDENCE; WHEN ALABAMA LOOKED LIKE—SURPRISE!—ALABAMA, GEORGIA SEEMED STUNNED. IN THE FIRST HALF OF THIS TITLE GAME, GEORGIA COMMITTED TOO MANY PENALTIES AND MADE TOO MANY MISTAKES, AND SABAN LOOKED LIKE HE WOULD BE HAPPY WINNING A GAME STRAIGHT OUT OF A PREVIOUS GENERATION: ALL DEFENSE AND FIELD POSITION AND SMARTS.
THE TALENT ON THE FIELD WAS TRULY BREATHTAKING. THESE WERE NOT JUST THE TWO BEST TEAMS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS YEAR, THEY WERE SO FAR AHEAD OF THE FIELD THAT NO. 3 ISN’T REALLY WORTH DEBATING. THE DEFENSIVE FRONTS HIT LIKE NFL TEAMS. ALABAMA SEEMED MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THIS STYLE.
THEN BENNETT COMMITTED THAT DISASTROUS TURNOVER THAT ENDED IN BRANCH’S HANDS. THIS WAS THE MOMENT FOR GEORGIA TO EITHER STOP WOBBLING OR JUST HAND ALABAMA ITS THERAPY BILLS. BENNETT MADE SURE IT ENDED THE WAY HE ALWAYS DREAMED. HE FINISHED WITH 17 COMPLETIONS IN 26 ATTEMPTS FOR 224 YARDS, AND WHO CARES? HE DIDN’T GO TO INDIANAPOLIS TO RACK UP STATS.
BENNETT, A FORMER WALK-ON WHO THINKS COACH-CLASS MIDDLE SEATS ARE ROOMY, IS NO BRYCE YOUNG. ALL YEAR LONG, THAT WAS THE CRITICISM. NOW IT’S THE COMPLIMENT. A GAME THAT LOOKED, FOR MUCH OF THE NIGHT, LIKE IT WOULD EXPOSE BENNETT, ULTIMATELY VALIDATED HIM. HE ALWAYS BELIEVED HIS COMBINATION OF GUTS, INTELLIGENCE AND SKILL WAS ENOUGH. HE DOESN’T HAVE TO SAY IT ANYMORE. HE JUST PROVED IT.
YOUNG MADE SOME SPECTACULAR PLAYS, INCLUDING A COUPLE OF DYNAMIC THROWS THAT PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOUCHDOWN PASSES BUT WERE DROPPED. HE IS GOING TO JOIN FORMER ALABAMA QUARTERBACKS MAC JONES, TAGOVAILOA AND JALEN HURTS AS NFL STARTERS SOMEDAY. BUT ONE OF THE BEAUTIES OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HAS ALWAYS BEEN THAT IT’S NOT JUST A FACTORY THAT PRODUCES NFL PLAYERS. THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ROOM FOR GUYS LIKE STETSON BENNETT. IT WAS REFRESHING TO SEE THAT THERE STILL IS.
Stetson Bennett completes journey from overlooked walk-on to Georgia hero
By Mike Vaccaro
January 11, 2022 1:20am Updated
Stetson Bennett on the Pressure of Playing Alabama – Bing video
The game was over, the championship clinched. Kelee Ringo had just picked off the final important pass of Bryce Young’s brilliant season, run it back 79 yards, and the Georgia Bulldogs were going to end a 41-year drought, and would finally escape the grip of Alabama’s band of crimson bogeymen.
Now, all at once, the moment finally overtook a 23-year-old football player named Stetson Bennett IV. All at once Bennett — the best story in this college football season — began to weep on the sideline. He looked at the scoreboard and saw the evidence of what he and his teammates had done — Georgia 33, Alabama 18 — and that’s all it took.
“It just hit me,” he would say a few minutes later, confetti falling all around him, a young boy’s dream officially springing to life in bright, vivid color and deafening resolution. “Good Lord. Wow.”
As a boy in Blackshear, Ga., Bennett had dreamed the dream so many kids in so many forgotten quarters of the Peach State do: leading the Bulldogs to glory for the first time since Herschel Walker was a freshman. He has spent so much of his career in Athens either unwanted, overlooked or underappreciated.
That will no longer be the case.
Stetson Bennett is hugged in the fourth quarter.
Stetson Fleming Bennett IV will never again have to pay for a meal, for a beer,
for a bottle of wine anywhere within the state borders. This one will be forever.
This one will be eternal.
The Bulldogs looked like they were about to lose another big game to the Crimson Tide, and Bennett was a big reason why. And then — in what felt like an eyeblink — the game turned upside down. Bennett turned it upside down. “I wasn’t going to be the reason we lost,” Bennett said. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
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That was the darkest moment. That’s when the Georgia faction of sold-out Lucas Oil Stadium began to wonder if maybe they weren’t destined to spend one more season followed by a dark cloud. The Bulldogs clung to a 13-12 lead, early in the fourth,
the game a throwback rock fight between the SEC’s two most glamorous programs.
Then, Bennett was pressured in the pocket. He tried to get rid of the ball, and it sure looked in real time — and on more than a few replays — that he had merely thrown an incomplete pass. But the officials ruled otherwise: They called it a fumble.
Alabama’s Brian Branch recovered with his foot a millimeter inbounds.
And four plays later Young found tight end Cameron Latu in the end zone.
Stetson Bennett fumbles in the fourth quarter. Getty Images
It was there that you could almost hear college football settle back onto its axis: Bama was ahead. Surely, Nick Saban’s crew would figure out a way to finish off his eighth national championship, seventh at Alabama. All they had to do was contain Bennett, who has spent his entire career hearing people pine for someone else, anyone else, other than No. 13.
It was on Bennett now. All of it. Game. Season. Championship.
“I had to. Otherwise, we were going to lose,” he said. “I said, ‘I’ve got to fix this.’ ”
He fixed it. You bet he did. The Bulldogs got the ball back, and Bennett started throwing the ball with more confidence than he had all night: 18 yards to Jermaine Burton; 10 yards to Kenny McIntosh. He targeted Burton again, and a pass interference brought them 15 yards closer. A sack pushed them back to the Bama 40 — Bennett held onto the ball for dear life.
And so it was: second-and-18. Just over eight minutes left. Bennett began his career at Georgia as a preferred walk-on, ran the scout team and shared a locker. He transferred to a junior college in Mississippi. He was recruited to play at Louisiana, but then Kirby Smart made a scholarship offer. He would arrive buried, again, on the depth chart. Smart kept recruiting over him. Bennett stayed. In his heart, he always was the kid from Blackshear, born to be a Bulldog.
Stetson Bennett celebrates Georgia’s national championship.
And now, he dropped back. There was a flag — Alabama had jumped offside, free play. There was a key block. Bennett heaved the ball as far as he could. And about 49 yards away, the ball dropped into Adonai Mitchell’s arms in the back of the end zone. Georgia had the lead. Bennett added another short TD pass one possession later.
Then, Ringo picked off Young.
And the moment finally tackled Stetson Bennett harder than any Alabama defender had all night. In that moment, it was impossible not to paraphrase the famous line from Hoosiers — “This is for all the walk-ons who never got a chance …”
What do you think? Post a comment.
Only this was real life. And Bennett said it better.
“I hope it gives someone a little hope,” he said.
“Keep your mouth shut, work hard. Life is tough. Work through it.”
SEE ALSO Georgia beats Alabama for first national championship since 1980 (nypost.com)
STETSON BENNETT SHARES SPECIAL MOMENT WITH HIS MOTHER FOLLOWING NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (SATURDAYDOWNSOUTH.COM)
College football updated polls: AP Top 25, Coaches Poll rankings after CFP championship (msn.com)
College football season grades from Georgia, Cincinnati and USC (usatoday.com)
Georgia QB Stetson Bennett discusses his play in 37-10 Georgia win – YouTube
Stetson Bennett LEADS Georgia to National Championship!!
Stetson Bennett: I wasn’t going to be the reason we lost!
Stetson Bennett: I wasn’t going to be the reason we lost! – YouTube
Stetson Bennett Postgame Interview Following 33-18 Win Over Alabama In National Championship
Microphones picked up the classy postgame exchange between Nick Saban and Kirby Smart
FULL 2022 National Championship Trophy Presentation Following Georgia’s 33-18 Win
The Mailman: How Georgia’s Stetson Bennett IV became the QB delivering in 2020
Stetson Bennett IV journey to becoming Georgia’s QB | College GameDay
From Walk on to Georgia Starting QB (The Unbelievable Story of Stetson Bennett)
Georgia’s Stetson Bennett talks team’s big win in national championship game.
Stetson Bennett: Mom| Draft stock| Will get drafted| Year| Parents| Nfl prospect.
The Ultimate Nick Saban Leadership Speech
The Journey of Stetson Bennett: Pt 1 and 2
The Journey of Stetson Bennett: Pt 3
Stetson Bennett draft profile
Who Is: Stetson Bennett
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