Senior Bowl director heaps praise on Georgia QB Stetson Bennett
Stetson Bennett IV is getting plenty of love after his torrid start to the 2022 season. Georgia defeated Oregon 49-3 on Saturday due in large part to a career performance from the sixth-year senior quarterback.
Reeses’ Senior Bowl Director Jim Nagy is the latest to make his opinion known. According to the talent long-time talent evaluator, Bennett is due even more respect than he has gotten thus far.
“It’s time @GeorgiaFootball QB Stetson Bennett starts getting respect as legit pro prospect & not just underdog story or good college QB,” Nagy tweeted to almost 106,000 followers. “@StetsonIv led 7 straight TD drives vs Oregon w/ plenty of next-level transferable skills. Checkout 27-yard strike w/ delayed LB in his face.”
Nagy highlighted a clip where Bennett sat in the pocket and found AD Mitchell for a big gain on 2nd and 9. Bennett fit the football into a tight window as Mitchell was working his way back to the line of scrimmage after running a deep clear-out route.
Bennett was in control for the entire three quarters that he was in the game. He completed 25 of 31 passes for 368 yards and two touchdowns. He added another touchdown on the ground.
At least two of Bennett’s five incompletions were intentional throwaways when he didn’t have a receiver open and at least one more was a clear drop. While Bennett was in the game, the Bulldogs went eight of eight on third down and they scored on all six of his drives.
The performance seems to have surprised quite a few, but maybe that shouldn’t be the case. After tossing two big interceptions in an SEC Championship loss to Alabama in 2021 in a 300-plus-yard, three-touchdown showing, Bennett went on to earn offensive MVP honors in both of UGA’s College Football Playoff games.
Many were clamoring for a change at quarterback after that league title game. They believed it was time for J.T. Daniels, now at West Virginia, to retake the reigns. Kirby Smart, however, had different plans.
“You guys don’t see every single practice, every single rep that led up to the Alabama game and all the reps from South Carolina to the time he played UAB all the way through — there’s a million things you don’t see against a pretty good defense, against a pretty elite defense,” Smart said on Monday. “So there was enough of that to convince me that we were going with the right guy. For who we were and who needed to be, he gave us the best chance to win. And it didn’t take a lot of conviction to stick to that. It doesn’t really matter what people say outside of our organization. It matters what we think in it. And we had conviction on that.”
