Stetson Bennett, doubted all year, rebounded from disaster to cement himself a Bulldogs’ legend.
Stetson Bennett is a pretty good passer and athlete with moxie, but compared to the rest of the starters for Georgia and Alabama, he looks like something a toddler might cling to as she sleeps. Most quarterbacks get sacked; Bennett gets flung. But most quarterbacks don’t win national championships for their home-state team, and Bennett just did.
Georgia did it, finally, but finally is all that matters. The Bulldogs won their first national title since 1980, which was a hundred lifetimes ago in college football, and they did it with an anachronism taking snaps. On a field full of future NFL starters, Bennett made somehow made the biggest play of the game for both teams. The first threatened to define him. The second one will, every time a Bulldogs fan sees him walking down a Georgia street.
Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports
This is how you don’t beat Alabama: By trying to chuck a pass that has no chance of landing in a happy place, fumbling as you toss it, and watching it bounce and land in the hands of the opposing team. The Crimson Tide’s Brian Branch didn’t seem to realize it was a pass at all; he casually made the biggest play of the game to that point, like an agent who thought he was defusing a fake bomb for practice only to discover it was a real one.
And this is how you do beat Alabama: After the Tide turn your mistake into a touchdown and an 18–13 lead, you take your team on two straight touchdown drives. Bennett completed all four of his official passes on those drives, for 83 yards and two perfect touchdowns: a gorgeous 49-yarder to Adonai Mitchell, to take the lead, and a 15-yarder to Brock Bowers to add to it. Bennett also drew pass interference penalties two other times.
Georgia beat Alabama, 33–18, avenging a slew of painful losses to the Tide—most recently in December’s SEC championship game. For the last few years, as Kirby Smart reeled in five-star recruits and won games by the bunch, a national title seemed inevitable on most days and impossible whenever Georgia played Alabama. Nick Saban famously beats all of his old assistants, and Smart was no exception.
Were the Tide in the Bulldogs’ heads? It’s easy to say no now. But with every Alabama win, it sure looked like it. In December, Georgia looked like it was riding false confidence; when Alabama looked like—surprise!—Alabama, Georgia seemed stunned. In the first half of this title game, Georgia committed too many penalties and made too many mistakes, and Saban looked like he would be happy winning a game straight out of a previous generation: All defense and field position and smarts.
Darron Cummings/AP
The talent on the field was truly breathtaking. These were not just the two best teams in college football this year, they were so far ahead of the field that No. 3 isn’t really worth debating. The defensive fronts hit like NFL teams. Alabama seemed more comfortable with this style.
Then Bennett committed that disastrous turnover that ended in Branch’s hands. This was the moment for Georgia to either stop wobbling or just hand Alabama its therapy bills. Bennett made sure it ended the way he always dreamed. He finished with 17 completions in 26 attempts for 224 yards, and who cares? He didn’t go to Indianapolis to rack up stats.
Bennett, a former walk-on who thinks coach-class middle seats are roomy, is no Bryce Young. All year long, that was the criticism. Now it’s the compliment. A game that looked, for much of the night, like it would expose Bennett, ultimately validated him. He always believed his combination of guts, intelligence and skill was enough. He doesn’t have to say it anymore. He just proved it.
Young made some spectacular plays, including a couple of dynamic throws that probably should have been touchdown passes but were dropped. He is going to join former Alabama quarterbacks Mac Jones, Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts as NFL starters someday. But one of the beauties of college football has always been that it’s not just a factory that produces NFL players. There has always been room for guys like Stetson Bennett. It was refreshing to see that there still is.
More College Football Coverage:
• Kirby, Nick and the Inside History of Smart vs. Saban
• Georgia Mascot Perfectly Sums Up First Half vs. Bama
• Alabama Loses Star WR Williams to Injury
