Georgia’s Stetson Bennett had the coolest response after winning first career start

Stetson Bennett IV epitomized coolness with what he said after winning his first start.

Georgia football doesn’t have a quarterback problem anymore, as it has Stetson Bennett IV.

The junior signal-caller made his first career start on Saturday night in primetime Between the Hedges vs. the cross-divisional rival Auburn Tigers. Auburn was the No. 7 team in the land, but the No. 4 Georgia Bulldogs had no issue putting Bo Nix and Gus Malzahn’s team in their place. Bennett outperformed Nix and “The Mailman” gave us quite the response after getting his first UGA win.

“My goal was always to start here,” said Bennett in the postgame presser. “That’s why I came here in the first place.” For a guy who walked on back in 2017, transferred to play junior college in Mississippi, came back in 2019 to back up Jake Fromm and then to assert himself as the now unquestioned starter for one of the four best teams in the nation, how can you not love this?

Stetson Bennett IV plays with the poise of a seasoned SEC starting quarterback.

“It was awesome,” said Bennett. “It’s so easy to play football when the defense plays as well as we did. I’m sure everybody back home was enjoying that. It was pretty cool.” The redshirt junior from Blackshear, Georgia is certainly making the most of his opportunity. Slated to be No. 4 on the Georgia quarterbacking depth chart, Bennett has taken the starting job firmly entering Week 3.

In two games this season, Bennett has completed 64.9 percent of his passes for 451 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. While some might try to label him as a game manger, they would be foolish to do such a thing. Bennett doesn’t just go in there to hand the ball off to Zamir White and James Cook and not try to turn the football over. He’s in there to make plays for UGA.

Bennett is cool under pressure and will move the sticks on third down with a pass rush wanting to bring him to the turf. He is spreading the ball around to all of his receivers. Dare we say it, he has found the necessary rhythm to succeed in Todd Monken’s Georgia offense. He may have done enough vs. Auburn to keep the starting job from going to JT Daniels or back to D’Wan Mathis.

While he’s not on par with Kyle Trask of the Florida Gators, Bennett looked infinitely better than what many in the media deemed as the third-best quarterback in the SEC in Nix. Through two weeks, Bennett is behind Trask, but right up there with Mac Jones of the Alabama Crimson Tide and K.J. Costello of the Mississippi State Bulldogs in that next tier of SEC starting quarterbacks.

Yes, that is what Bennett is: An SEC starting quarterback, who happens to be on an elite team.

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