ATHENS, Ga. — It was late on a Friday night in south Georgia seven years ago, and two Stetson Bennetts were driving home, listening to the radio. Stetson Bennett III, the father, was known as Big Stet. His son, Stetson Bennett IV, was Little Man. They were returning from a high school football game in which Little Man, a freshman, had come off the bench late in a blowout to throw his first touchdown.
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They were now listening to scores from other games on a popular Friday night lights-type show, when they heard John Dupont calling in the report from Pierce County’s game. Dupont offered up this nugget: “Keep an eye on this kid, this freshman Stetson Bennett, he’s going to be somebody.”
Big Stet and Little Man punched each other like little school children.
Now think of this past Saturday. Little Man now has a new nickname, and came off the bench to lead Georgia to victory on a slightly bigger stage. Everybody saw that.
“Saturday is what he’s been waiting to prove to everybody,” Dupont said. “And I don’t think he’s going to be satisfied with just one-and-done either.”
And thus is the big question around Georgia this week. Could Bennett do it for an entire season? Could he beat the likes of Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida? It’s a great story, but Georgia is big-time football — can it win all season with a 5-foot-11 former walk-on? Or will Georgia thank Bennett for his efforts and turn back to D’Wan Mathis, or go to a presumably healthy JT Daniels?
Kirby Smart, who isn’t going to announce a starter, said after Tuesday’s practice that “body of work” has to count in all starting decisions, and that includes the three scrimmages. Mathis won the job based on that, and indications are he is still getting some first-team work at practice. But Bennett’s body of work now includes that late-game rescue at Arkansas — as well as plenty else.
“Stet plays with no fear,” said Steve Buckley, who coached Bennett for one season at Jones College (Miss.) He has athleticism and a high football IQ, with a very strong arm. When you combine all of those things together you can execute at the quarterback position.”
The Mailman — Bennett’s nickname by this point — arrived at Jones College in the summer of 2018. He was ambitious, having just left his dream school of Georgia, where he had gained fame for mimicking Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield in Rose Bowl practice. But Bennett wanted to do more than scout team, and he wanted a scholarship, so he was at this junior college in hopes of earning a scholarship offer from a four-year school.
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There was one problem: Bennett was injured. He had a torn labrum that prevented him from throwing downfield until barely a week before the first game. But his coach, who three years before worked for current Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken, decided to throw him out there anyway for the first game.
It went just fine. Bennett threw for two touchdowns as Jones College won, 44-0, beginning its winningest season in 17 years, with Bennett leading the offense.
Bennett led Jones College to a 10-2 record in 2018 and the Bobcats finished fifth in the final NJCAA poll. (Photo: JUCOWeekly.org)It was not a perfect season. Bennett passed for 16 touchdowns and ran for four touchdowns, and ranked 12th in the NJCAA in passing yards. But he also threw 14 interceptions.
“It was just trying to do too much,” Buckley said. “Make plays out of maybe something not being there. He was pushed to make things happen in a semester. I get it. He came here to play and get out of here with a four-year offer. Sometimes at that position, you feel like you’ve gotta do more than you can do. Nothing against him, he forced some things that obviously shouldn’t have been forced, trying to make plays. But he led us to a 10-win season that year. We had a great year.”
And Bennett secured that four-year scholarship offer, from Louisiana-Lafayette. Then came the eve of signing day in 2019, when he looked at his phone and realized he had missed calls from Smart and then-quarterbacks coach James Coley. They wanted him back, and were offering a scholarship.
Buckley actually advised Bennett to pass on the offer and stick with Louisiana-Lafayette. But not out of loyalty to the Sun Belt school.
“I thought the kid should go somewhere he could play,” Buckley said. “I was not doing the kid justice if I didn’t give him my opinion. Did I think Stet could play at Georgia? Yes. But it’s hard when you’ve got (Jake) Fromm, you’ve got another kid coming in, and another kid coming in, and another kid coming in. …”
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But to understand why Bennett, for all that ambition, took the offer is to go back to his high school days, and that man who first told radio listeners that the freshman on junior varsity would be somebody.
Dupont was also Bennett’s teacher for a 12th grade British Literature class. Bennett was one of the smartest students Bennett has taught, the kind of kid he would send on his own to study Act V of MacBeth and come back with high points. When Dupont heard that Ivy League schools — Harvard, Yale and Columbia — were offering Bennett significant financial aid, he pulled his star student aside. Not many, if anybody, from Pierce County had gone Ivy League as a student, period. You could go, and start in football.
“Yeah, I see what you’re doing there,” Bennett replied.
He was not convinced.
“UGA is in his blood,” Dupont said.
A week before signing day in 2017 they were talking again, and Bennett relayed that a Georgia assistant coach told them they didn’t have a scholarship for Bennett, but “you can come if you want to.”
“That sounds like an un-vitation,” Dupont said.
Bennett jumped at the un-vitation. And over the next year, he impressed teammates on scout team.
“That guy Stetson, he’s phenomenal,” Roquan Smith said before the Rose Bowl. “He’s probably a 4.5-(second 40-yard dash) guy and can throw the ball really good, and he’s quick as a cat.”
“If you wanted to be like a Baker Mayfield mini-me, that kid can play ball,” J.R. Reed said, also before the Rose Bowl. “He can play probably at any school he wants to right now and be up for starting if he was just a little taller. But the kid, he can play. I love him.”
Bennett during practice in Dec. 2018. (Steven Colquitt / UGA Athletics)The name, Stetson Fleming Bennett IV, may give off the air of someone who went to a private school and spends summers playing golf on Sea Island. (There’s a tiny bit of truth to that, with Georgia punter Jake Camarda revealing this week that “Stetson is annoyingly good at golf.”)
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But Bennett attended a public school in small-town Blackshear, Ga., where he shared a football region and played against a litany of future Georgia teammates: Richard LeCounte (who was at Liberty County High School), Malik Herring (Mary Persons), Travon Walker (Upson-Lee), Quay Walker (Crisp County), Kearis Jackson (Peach County) and Tyrique McGhee (Peach County).
Bennett played at Pierce County, where he racked up more than 3,700 career passing yards, 500 rushing yards and 40 touchdowns as a senior. His best friend, also the center on the team, had relatives working for the postal service and he gave Bennett a mail carrier’s hat. Deejay Dallas, who went on to play Miami, took a picture of Bennett wearing the hat at a recruiting camp and posted it on Instagram with the Mailman hashtag. It stuck.
Now the Mailman is … the starter? That remains to be seen. So does the rest of the story. But it’s already a good one.
“I thought he gave Georgia a spark they needed at the time,” Buckley said. “He played well. He made plays with his legs. He made good throws. He did the things that Stet can do.”
(Top photo: Walt Beazley / UGA Athletics)
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