Gunner Stockton

New Tricks Needed?

By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The signs were always there. The Alabama game. The Ole Miss game. Even plenty of victories: Kentucky, Georgia Tech, and the SEC Championship Game.

It all left everyone, including those within the Georgia football program, questioning if this was a group that actually would keep the legacy going to another championship.

We got that answer in the College Football Playoff. It was definitive. Georgia was not the best team in the country this year and they deserved their fate.

Now it leads to the next mystery: Was this game, and rocky season a kick in the butt to the program? Was this season a message that Georgia’s not the elite it was two years ago?

Does leadership need to change goals and make moves to avoid slipping further?

Although Georgia was ultimately still the SEC champion, they lost in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals when they were down to their backup quarterback.

Kirby Smart said some curious things after the loss to Notre Dame. Let’s start with his post-mortem on the season, which he called “Easily the toughest of my tenure.” That may be a bit of recency bias.

The truth reared its ugly face at The Bulldogs, and it said: Get better as a football program. Let Kirby’s above words sit and remember people-  it’s not a second-year coach trying to get his program to another level, but the ninth-year coach of a team that won two of the previous three national titles.

Maybe on some level Kirby Smart mirrors his mentor Nick Saban with the mentality of always trying to improve, even when on top. Or maybe this year’s team is a reflection that this program isn’t on top right now.

There’s no clear answer. You can argue that transfer rules and paying players have changed the game.

The Big Ten and Notre Dame having three of the four semifinalists feed into that argument. But the 2022 season wasn’t that long ago, right? It’s not like this was a crashing disappointment for the Dawgs: They’re 4-1 against teams that made the Playoffs, the only one they lost was in the Playoffs.

There was just something missing, and Smart’s job is to figure out what that was, and to what extent does this team need to change.

Now for some apparent good news: Gunner Stockton looks like a viable starter for 2025-26. His pocket presence needs to improve, but that should grow with experience.

The underrated gap between Carson Beck and Stockton, in a start of this magnitude, may have been game management and making checks at the line, which Stockton acknowledged.

But if it is Stockton, the coaches need to acquire help around them. QBs and Coaches need receivers who won’t drop the ball. Georgia was burned during this portal window by receivers unsure of the identity or throwing ability of Georgia’s quarterback next season.

Maybe Stockton’s play helps convince recruits and transfers.

Let’s be clear. There is risk in overstating what happened in this game. Georgia outgained the Irish and averaged more yards. They reached the red zone more often. It’s not like this was a domination. Georgia belonged on the same field, but Georgia should be the more mature program in the building; all evidence says they were.

Instead, Georgia committed the game’s only two turnovers, gave up a 98-yard kickoff return because of missed tackles, and coach Smart made risks that backfired.

Looking back, much of Georgia’s problem was being outplayed by Notre Dame, especially in the second half, when UGA approached the cusp of another epic comeback and failed: The defense made a big fourth-down stop, handing the offense the ball at midfield. A 10-point game, plenty of time left, momentum at Georgia’s back. But the Bulldogs couldn’t capitalize, with go-nowhere plays on third-and-3 and fourth-and-2.

That was yet another mystery about this team. Stockton, whose arm was the question coming in, passed for 234 yards and looked pretty good for a new starter. Georgia just couldn’t run the ball, despite Notre Dame being without its best defensive player, lineman Rylie Mills. The Dawgs also did not protect well, yielding four sacks.

The offense will remain the focus. The defense can reload by retaining the talented youngsters who understudied this year. This Bulldog team will still be young, and this year’s inconsistent play showed that Georgia doesn’t have a birthright to elite defenses in today’s College Football Landscape.

Georgia isn’t automatically elite just because of rings in 2021 and 2022. They aren’t automatically elite as long as Smart is coach, he is starting to lose.

Although optimism still reigned in a losing locker room, do they deserve optimism with this result?

What did this loss mean for the program? Was it a hit to the ego?

QB1 Room

By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

It’s about that time in Athens, Ga. You can smell it in the air. We’re weeks away from the Georgia Bulldogs padding up for preseason camp.

For the first time in 41 years, Kirby Smart and company will be starting the 2022 NCAAF season as the defending national champions.

There are certainly a lot of questions to answer, and competitions to be had.

Losing a record 15 players to the NFL Draft creates uncertainty at some key positions.

However, several starters on offense, as well as a couple of key leaders on the defensive side of the football, will help ease any concerns.

I’ll take the time to provide a preview of the quarterback group in red and black.

Stetson Bennett returns after leading Georgia to the National Championship in 2021.

Starting 12 of 15 games including each of the last 11, Bennett threw for 2,862 yards and 29 touchdowns on 185-of-287 passing.

There were times where he didn’t look great – turn on the tape from Florida (10-of-19, 161 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions) or the SEC Championship Game against Alabama (29-of-48, 340 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions).

However, there were also times that he was spectacular. Bennett tied the program record for touchdowns in a single game with five scores in the first half alone against UAB.

The Blackshear, Ga. native threw three touchdowns over Kentucky in a top-15 SEC Game of the Week. He didn’t throw a single interception in that game or their game against Auburn.

Two touchdowns against Missouri and four against Georgia Tech with 255 yards in both contests helped the Bulldogs finish the regular season undefeated.

Then, of course, there were the Playoffs when Bennett earned Offensive MVP of the Orange Bowl against Michigan and the CFP Championship Game against Alabama, combining for 537 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions.

So, like lots of quarterbacks, Bennett has lots of good that comes with the occasional bad. You just have to be able to help him out and put him in good situations.

Because Bennett isn’t perfect and because he wasn’t the highest-rated recruit, some question Kirby Smart’s decision to stick with him.

Carson Beck seems to have solidified himself as the backup. Beck, a four-star and the No. 16 quarterback in the Class of 2020, threw for 274 yards during Georgia’s G-Day spring scrimmage.

Beck was awarded Mr. Football in the state of Florida for 2018 after leading Mandarin High School to a Class 8A state championship.

Brock Vandagriff also offers a talented option off the bench. A former five-star and the No. 4-ranked quarterback in the Class of 2021 from right down the road in Bogart, Ga.,

Vandagriff has the ability to make plays with both his arms and his legs. Georgia fans have been calling for a player like that for quite some time.

Finally, Gunner Stockton is the fresh face in the quarterback room. He’s just a freshman, don’t expect to see him often.

He’ll be busy learning the playbook and running the scout team.

Bennett elected to return for another year with the Bulldogs, which is a large reason why I rank the Dawg’s quarterback room the very best in the SEC.

QB1?

By: Jeff Doke

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

On early signing day this year, the University of Georgia once again racked up some serious commitments.

The Dawgs are currently the #3 recruiting class for the year, behind Texas A&M and Alabama.

The majority of the top signees were on the defensive side of the ball – including the much-heralded Marvin Jones, Jr. – but arguably the top prospect was five-star in-state QB Gunner Stockton.

Normally, a top-rated signal-caller signing with your school would be cause for hope, if not outright celebration. For Georgia fans in the Kirby Smart era, it’s cause for measured concern.

The University of Georgia has had five 5-star quarterback commits in their locker room since Kirby Smart took over between the hedges in in December of 2015; Jacob Eason, Justin Fields, JT Daniels, Brock Vandagriff, and the previously mentioned Stockton.

For someone not familiar with UGA football, this statistic looks amazing. One would think that the offense over the last six seasons would have been stellar. While the Dawgs have put up decent offensive numbers – and have improved every year over the last three – they haven’t been coming from those highly-touted players.

To a large number of UGA fans, therein lies the greatest concern they have with Coach Smart.

The story of Jake Fromm is well known in Georgia lore. He took over for the injured Eason in 2017 and never looked back, taking the Dawgs to the National Championship Game.

Eason would transfer after that season. In 2018, Fromm held off the advances of Fields (and the cries from Dawg Nation to give Fields more snaps), contributing significantly to the latter’s transfer to Ohio State.

One four-star dispensing of two five-stars. One must wonder if history is repeating itself and must worry if it can repeat itself again in the future.

JT Daniels was supposed to be the starter this year. Coach Smart said it multiple times in the offseason, and the fact that Daniels was healthy had many mentioning him in early Heisman talk.

Alas, he didn’t stay healthy, and his status as starter was brief. Stetson Bennett’s performance has been well-documented for both good and bad throughout the year, and the fact that with Daniels and Vandagriff on the sidelines leads many to question Coach Smart’s decision process when it comes to his field generals.

Regardless of what happens in the Michigan matchup in the Orange Bowl and beyond, Coach Smart will have some big decisions to make for 2022.

With the arrival of Stockton, Daniels and Bennett still having a year of eligibility left, and Vandagriff and Carson Beck still on scholarship, the Georgia Quarterback room will be a crowded one.

With the NCAA installing a one-time limit on the transfer portal, and Bennett’s well-documented love of all things red & black, you would expect “The Mailman” and JT to still be around next year unless they decide to test the waters in the NFL draft.

Honestly, I don’t see either of them doing so after this season. Do Beck and Vandagriff hang around? Hard to say.

Don’t get me wrong; I love what Kirby Smart has done for football at UGA. I love what Stetson Bennett has done this year, save for the SEC Championship, obviously. The fact that our quarterback situation is an embarrassment of riches is a problem that 99.44% of all CFB programs would love to have.

Kirby Smart knows how to recruit quarterbacks. He has shown it multiple times in his tenure in the Classic City and continues to show it with the rising 2022 class of recruits.

To me, the big question that I really don’t want to ask is “why?”

And it’s a question I’m fine with not having the answer to.