Georgia football: 3 major award candidates for the Bulldogs in 2022
By John Buhler
Scouting Report. Pick Analysis. QB. Stetson Bennett IV. 2. 814. Georgia Bulldogs. player
Stetson Bennett IV needs to leave Athens as a winner of the Burlsworth Trophy
“The Mailman” delivered Dawg Nation the only thing that mattered: A national title! With Stetson Bennett IV returning for one last ride in what will be his super duper senior season, a lot will be put upon on his shoulders. Bennett has an outside shot to prove he is Georgia’s Ian Book, a good college quarterback capable of being drafted. He also can be Georgia’s first Burlsworth winner.
The former walk-on was a finalist for the honor a season ago. He lost out to Arkansas linebacker Grant Morgan, who had been a finalist for the Burlsworth in 2020. Though the award is only a decade and change old, it has become a prestigious honor because of who Brandon Burlsworth was and what he represented. Bennett is everything any coach would ever want out of a walk-on.
Georgia nearly had its first Burlsworth winner back in 2019 when a bespectacled placekicker by the name of Rodrigo Blankenship was a finalist for it. Despite winning the Groza, Blankenship missed out on the Burlsworth ever so slightly. Fate would have it he would sign with the same NFL franchise Burlsworth was briefly part of before his heartbreaking and tragic demise in 1999.
If Bennett plays like we all know he can, he will be the first Dawg to bring home the Burlsworth.