Stetson Bennett reflects on Georgia career, future in football

Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett was named the 2022 recipient of the Manning Award on Monday and met with the media afterwards. There he shared some reflection on his career as a whole and a bit of a look ahead to what’s next for him as he turns his attention to the NFL.

Bennett, who became the first Georgia quarterback to throw for over 4,000 yards in a single season, has yet to announce whether or not he’ll play in the Reese’s Senior Bowl on February 4th. He said that he’s “still working on that decision as of right now.” However, as it pertains to his future in NFL, Bennett doesn’t care one bit that he’s being overlooked once again. After all, it’s nothing new to him.

“I told people coming out of high school and coming up to Georgia, it’s the same concept. I was the starting quarterback in high school, people knew my name. It was a small town but once you get to Georgia, it’s the same thing. And then once you hopefully go to the NFL, I imagine it’s the same thing. People are going to have their opinions. My job is to go out there and play football, to get the ball in athletes hands and do it consistently and play hard and play to win,” Bennett said. “People can say whatever, I hear it but I don’t really let it bother me. You can’t listen to them when it’s good and then not listen to them when it’s bad or vice-versa. I just kind of hear it. I know what I’m supposed to do and what my job is supposed to do. And how to work to be able to perform at that level. It’s really hard. So I can’t be too focused on what everybody else has to say.”

That certainly was Bennett’s approach in college. If you remember, the storyline of the 2021 season was that after starting the season as the backup, taking over as the starter and being subjected to plenty of criticism Bennett turned to a flip phone as his escape. Yes, he absolutely heard some of the talk around town, but his focus was on playing football.

The same was the case in 2022 when he decided to return for a sixth season, passing on the opportunity to ride off into the sunset and enjoy life forever with his National Championship ring like many wanted him to. Nope. Once again, playing football was at the forefront of his mind, and Bennett played his best when the stage was the biggest, combining for 1,601 yards, 20 total touchdowns and just two turnovers in Georgia’s five games against ranked opponents.

“I don’t know, maybe I need to lock in a little more during the other ones,” Bennett joked when asked what that said about his game. “You know, the big ones, I don’t know, I guess we had a good sense of the immediacy of it. The Tennessee game we viewed as a Playoff game, viewed SEC as a Playoff game, Playoff game as a Playoff game and National Championship obviously. We can always, or we could, this season just turn on that switch when we needed to as a team.”

“Because of the position and all that stuff, people talk about the quarterback more so than other positions but I was doing what everybody else did. Everybody else played better. Everybody else turned it up,” he continued. “We had a sense for the moment. We had a sense for what was important. And we had a sense for what would happen if we didn’t perform that way which I think is the most important thing. You can want to play hard all you want, but if you realize, ‘Hey, we’re done if we lose this game,’ then it’s a healthy respect for the game, a healthy fear for the opponent.”

As for reflecting on his career as a whole, Bennett has never been one to do so before Monday’s Manning Award media availability. Until then he was always focused on football. Even at the championship celebration Bennett left fans wanting more out of his send-off speech, but if they could hear what he had to say on Monday, they might be happy.

“I’ll let y’all people who are good at writing write about that. But for the most part, I think the people who were around when it started and went all the way to when it finished – and it’s going to keep going with Georgia, Coach Smart’s not going anywhere – the fans who were there, the players who were there, Nick (Chubb) and Sony (Michel), all those ones that came before us, the fans that traveled to Notre Dame in ’17 and overtook that stadium, we went to the Rose Bowl that same year, I hope everyone can remember what it was like on that ride because it was nuts,” Bennett said. “It was nuts. Them hating me, me hating them, us falling in love together and coming back, playing football, I mean it was special. I wouldn’t change a single thing. I don’t think I’d be here without it being that way.”

“I just hope that everybody who was there and everybody who was with me and everybody I was with knows I appreciate the heck out of it. Everything,” he continued. “I don’t know how it’s going to be remembered but I do know that I appreciate it. I enjoy going and looking at it all. I took a few days a little bit ago just to think about it, and go, ‘You know what? That was — ‘ I don’t know if you guys have seen The Last Waltz, but I think that game against TCU was kind of that. It was an ode to an era that is over now but it was pretty special whenever it happened.”