“I think we’ve seen what we needed to see here.”

Matt Hinton is unstinting in his take on Stetson Bennett’s ceiling against Alabama.

… Going back to last year’s regular-season loss in Tuscaloosa – a game that ended with an identical final score, 41-24 – Bennett has thrown 5 interceptions in the past 2 meetings, 4 of them with the Bulldogs trailing in the second half.

Bennett was hardly Georgia’s only problem, nor, on a day when the running game made no impact, wide receivers generated no separation, and the defense got exposed at every level, was he necessarily the biggest. Still, it’s clear enough that as long as he’s in the lineup, the Bulldogs will always struggle to win games that deviate from a defensively-driven script that Alabama has no interest in playing along to.

In stark contrast to Young, Bennett offered very little in the way of downfield juice and inspired even less confidence in his capacity to transcend the team’s larger issues. He connected on 1 attempt beyond 20 yards, an early jump ball to George Pickens that gained 37 yards and set up UGA’s first touchdown, and didn’t threaten the Tide deep again.

Like me, though, Hinton doesn’t see the ultimate issue being with Bennett himself, but with Kirby Smart.

Obviously, Kirby Smart is not paid $7.1 million a year to be obtuse about the most important position on the roster. On the contrary, he’s made quarterback a priority, signing 5-star or borderline 5-star prospects in 4 of the past 6 recruiting cycles and pursuing Daniels and Jamie Newman on the transfer market to bridge the gap until the heir apparent, true freshman Brock Vandagriff, is ready to take the reins in 2022 (if Daniels leaves early) or ’23. And yet here he is, again: On the losing end of a big game in which his team was outgunned in a career-making performance for the other side’s star QB, while arguably the most talented signal-caller on his own depth chart remains nailed to the bench.

After the game, Smart described the loss as “a wake-up call,” and technically he didn’t rule out the possibility of making the switch to Daniels while reiterating his confidence in both quarterbacks. At the end of the day, though, nothing in his answer or his track record suggests the status quo is likely to come under serious scrutiny between now and New Year’s Eve. Why would it, when it’s already carried him this far? But there is still time to wake up before the next big opportunity, and in the wake of the latest reality check there’s more urgency than ever. In the aftermath of the wipeout in Atlanta, how the Bulldogs got here is just a story. What matters now is the hard decisions they’re willing make to give themselves the best chance to go all the way.

I forget who said it, but somebody once put forth the proposition that other things being equal, rematches favor the original loser, because that’s who has the incentive to change strategy, while the winner typically sticks with what worked the first time around.  I have this ominous feeling that Kirby Smart is really tempted to eschew that and double down on what got him where he is this season.  If that’s the case, I suppose the wake-up call is for players only.

And if that’s where things wind up, with the same results, I don’t think Georgia fans are going to vent their frustration in Stetson’s direction.  He’ll just be playing the hand Smart dealt him.