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The legend of Stetson Bennett began at Georgia with stories of his prowess as a scout-team quarterback before a Playoff game, mimicking Baker Mayfield and dicing up the Georgia defense. As Bennett ended his college journey six years later, the circle of life sprang up, another scout-team quarterback drawing raves during a Georgia Playoff run.
Georgia defensive players bragged that their practices for Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud before the 2022 Peach Bowl were as hard as the game. “Gunner was slinging it like C.J. out there,” linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson said afterwards.
A week later, Kirby Smart gushed that his scout-team quarterback volunteered to take off the black non-contact jersey so the defense was prepared for TCU’s Max Duggan: “Gunner Stockton said, ‘Coach, take my shirt off. I’ll take the hits.’”
Three seasons later, Stockton is Georgia’s starter. He’s won games and performed well in the clutch. He’s also shown warts, and there are doubts about whether he can carry the team to a national title, a narrative that he’s a spunky but limited quarterback.
Huh, sounds a bit familiar.
This isn’t to compare Stockton to Bennett, the finished product, the one who won two national championships and was a Heisman finalist. Or to ignore the obvious storyline difference between Bennett, the walk-on who transferred then returned, and Stockton, the four-star prospect.
This is to compare Stockton to Bennett at the same point of their careers: Fourth year, essentially rookie starters at the college level.
Bennett vs. Stockton: First 8 starts*
PlayerStetson BennettGunner Stockton
Passing yards
1,539
1,569
Passing TD
13
7
INT
6
2
Cmp.-Att.
102-176
137-217
Rushing yards
90
207
Rushing TD
2
6
Record
6-2
6-2
*This includes Bennett coming off the bench in the first half of the 2020 season opener, and Stockton coming in for the second half of last year’s SEC championship. Both games in which the Bulldogs were trailing when they entered but ended up winning.
Aaron Murray, the former Georgia star quarterback and now ESPN game analyst, followed both of their careers closely. He saw Bennett become a championship-caliber quarterback, and thinks Stockton can do it, too.
“I definitely think what Gunner brings to the table is more than plenty and good enough to bring us a championship,” Murray said. “And you know, he’s only (started) eight games in his career, right? It’s not like he’s not going to get better, for goodness sakes. Is he where he needs to be to win a championship? Maybe not. But can he get there? Yeah, I think he can.”
That wouldn’t be quite as magical a story as Bennett, who had to deal with Georgia coaches recruiting over him with the likes of JT Daniels, D’Wan Mathis and Jamie Newman. Though in Stockton’s case, the coaches did try for other options, too: Fernando Mendoza made a visit to Athens last December, even as Stockton was preparing for the Playoff. Mendoza ended up going to Indiana, where his brother was on the team, and he had a guaranteed starting spot. Jayden Maiava was officially committed to Georgia for one day in January 2024, before Lincoln Riley and USC swooped in with a better offer. And of course, there was Carson Beck’s transfer to Miami, after initially declaring for the draft.
But, again, there are still nuances with the Bennett-Stockton comparison.
Bennett had a stronger arm. (“If Stetson was 6-3 he would have been a first-round draft pick,” Murray said.) Stockton is a well-built 6-foot-2 but hasn’t shown a consistently strong arm.
Stetson Bennett’s Georgia run ended with two national championships. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
Bennett also had an up-and-down first season as the starter, finishing sixth in the SEC with a middling 7.6 yards-per-attempt, yielding to Daniels for the final three games. We know what happened in 2021: Daniels got hurt, Bennett reclaimed the starting job and was a better quarterback with experience. So that’s the argument for Stockton: He may be a fourth-year player, but he’s a first-time starter, just as Bennett was, and will improve with experience.
Stockton will get his shot this season, though nothing is assured about 2026: Five-star recruit Jared Curtis is set to arrive next spring, and could be one of the highest-ranked players in the country. Georgia also still has Ryan Puglisi, a second-year player with a live arm, and he should keep developing.
But so should Stockton. He’s already shown one big improvement — although he may have over-corrected on it.
In six games this season, Stockton has as many turnovers — two — as he had in his game-and-a-half at the end of last season. Pocket awareness emerged as a big issue for him after Notre Dame sacked him twice, including the strip-sack that turned the game near the end of the first half. He also had a bad interception against Texas, throwing on the run when he shouldn’t have.
This year, Stockton has one fumble (in the fourth quarter at Tennessee) and one interception (against Kentucky). Smart has said Stockton has some gunslinger tendencies, indicating they wanted to reel that in. But Stockton has also been tentative, not throwing to some open receivers.
“I think I just need to cut it loose sometimes and just play ball,” Stockton said, then downplayed his lack of interceptions: “The Lord’s kind of blessed me with some, might-have-should-have-been-some picks early in the season.”
Stockton has also not hit on a lot of the eye-popping intermediate passes. His yards-per-attempt this season (7.5) ranks 12th in the SEC. But he’s made big throws in the clutch: There was the touchdown pass to London Humphreys at Tennessee (not to mention the ensuing two-point conversion pass to Zachariah Branch). And on the game-clinching drive at Auburn, Stockton completed three third-down passes and another on fourth down.
Plus that run to the pylon, which was shades of Bennett’s touchdown run against Tennessee in 2022. Stockton added his own bit of bravado with a Superman leap, which Smart said they’d discuss with Stockton.
“It was kind of heat of the moment,” Stockton said, smiling.
Stockton led two comeback wins on the road, against two of the most hostile crowds in the SEC. Bennett didn’t have those kinds of wins until later, but it came with gusto: The comeback win for the first national title, the win over Ohio State in the CFP semifinal, big throws in other big situations.
The clutch gene is a real thing, opined Murray, even if the quarterback doesn’t always throw the prettiest ball.
“I’m sure there’s plenty of quarterbacks who don’t have it, you look up and it’s a fourth-quarter drive, you got to get points, and everyone’s questioning, ‘Hey, do we have the quarterback to get it done?’ And then obviously their game’s affected by that,” Murray said. “Whereas Gunner elevates guys around him. Oh, and those guys believe in him. So, like, there’s no quit from the other 10. I think that’s huge.”
