Words of wisdom from David Hale…
Tier 2a: What’s a guy gotta do to get some Heisman love around here? (one player)
Georgia’s Stetson Bennett
The discussion surrounding Bennett — even after winning the national championship last year — has grown more than tiresome. It’s true that Bennett wasn’t a star recruit and doesn’t have an elite arm and probably doesn’t have a serious NFL future. It’s also true that he benefited from a genuinely great defense that routinely put him in position to succeed. But Georgia’s offense was hardly laden with superstars last year, and Bennett’s numbers — 3,000 yards, 30 touchdowns — speak for themselves. On paper, a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton, a TV show about a paper company in northeastern Pennsylvania and a tiered ranking of 131 QB situations shouldn’t work either, yet here we are. Stop picking Bennett apart and just enjoy the ride.
Amen to that. Of course, it’s easy to feel that way when Todd Monken’s directing the traffic.
Get The Picture 
Todd Monken is the real QB whisperer. He had his projected starter back out on him 3 weeks before the opening of the season in 2020. He put SBIV out there when the blue-chip replacement struggled. He then took another blue-chip guy coming off knee surgery and finished the season. For an encore, he deals with same blue-chip’s early season injury issues and brings SBIV back. All he does then is wins a national title.
In Todd we trust.
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Man, Stetson’s lack of respect is so bad, he doesn’t even get the dreaded “system quarterback” label (which seems to be below “game manager”) from national press, local media, or even fans. I hope we win another natty just so he can tell people to suck on these two rings.
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That’s the truth. Go Stet!
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Hell, at least he got a mention. That’s more than you saw from many of the other knuckleheads out there.
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I was on the “Stetson’s starting because he’s better than JT for this team” train after Week 1.
That said, Stetson wasn’t close to being the best player on his own team last season. And that will bear out again this season.
Which is fine. The Heisman is a fickle set of voters who love fast-risers and new faces.
Stetson, as Blutarsky noted often last season, is great when he can work from a lead and less so when he has to make up ground from behind. Defense will be talented as hell, but Kirby is Coach of the Year if he can wring the same stats out of this year’s crew.
Stetson will have his opportunities to get to New York. He’s going to have to put the team on his back a couple of games this season.
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Not sure I agree with you … sure, the offense didn’t look good in Charlotte, and I’m not convinced it would have looked any better with Bennett in there. Daniels looked really good against South Carolina and Vanderbilt (I think he got injured in that game).
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He sure dropped a few bombs in the Natty. He’s a great part of a great team!! What’s the fuckin’ problem???
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As I have said before, there have been many Heisman QBs that had no NFL future.
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Name a Heisman winning QB who wasn’t drafted.
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Charlie Ward (NFL draft)
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Correct. But only because he chose the NBA draft instead.
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Gino Toretta went in the 7th round. I guarantee if Stet won the Heisman someone would pick him with a late pick.
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Jason White, 2003, Oklahoma
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Not necessarily undrafted, but not really expected to have any real impact. Danny Wuerffel, Jason White, Gino Torretta, and Eric Crouch to name a few.
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Don’t forget Little Timmy Tebow.
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Eric Crouch was drafted as WR.
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He sure as fuck deserved to drink that Pappy straight from the bottle. In my opinion, he shoulda made jello-shooters with it. Dude gets so much disrespect for being a DGD with more trophies than Greene, Murray, and Stafford combined.
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I like Stetson Bennett with a chip on his shoulder. If this is making that chip on his shoulder bigger, then this is great news.
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Stetson’s only problem will be deciding which of the open receivers to throw it to. Seriously, he just needs to keep improving on decision-making and let the talent work for itself.
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Anticipating where the ball needs to go presnap and confidence when throwing across the middle will do him wonders.
Those things will help him to get better on 3rd and distance.
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Y’all need to help grandpa out here: what is the “TV show about a paper company in northeastern Pennsylvania”? There are a lot of shows that I don’t watch, but I think I know most of them.
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The Office.
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Doh. I am familiar with the original Ricky Gervais product, but then it wasn’t about a company in northeastern Pennsylvania. But with the success of the British version it was destined to work even on paper. So is Stetson.
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I honestly do not give a single shit about the Heisman. The Heisman long ago stopped being about the best player in college football and became an award for the biggest media darling in college football. Last year’s Heisman winner threw 1 td and 2 ints, one for a game sealing pick six, in the biggest game of the year.
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Stet doesn’t need to worry about winning the Heisman. He needs to worry about which one of his TE’s will win the Heisman.
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If you go back and look at JT’s body of work outside of the Miss St game you see an interesting trend: a ton of completions that do nothing. Hitting backs out of the backfield on 2nd and 8 that get 2 yards. Things like that.
I think the narrative was that we were sitting the Big Gun in favor of a Checkdown Charlie – and personally, I think Stetson was far better at intermediate passing than JT. Much better at those deep outs. His mobility threat gave the check downs a bit more room to operate.
If nothing else, I’m betting Stetson was just a lot better at putting the ball in Bowers’ hands in areas more lethal to the defense.
JT was fools gold. Great kid, enormously productive in the right conditions. But erratic and inefficient in too many others.
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This was supposed to be a reply to EE above
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Not sure I’m buying your narrative.
JT started seven games for UGA. In four of those, he averaged better than 10 ypa and was just a tick under that in a fifth. The only game it’s fair to criticize him for dink and dunk was Clemson, where his ypa was a subpar 4.5. Not sure that Stetson would have fared much better against that defense, though.
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I agree, I was really surprised when I went back and charted each completion. It really was boom-or-bust with JT in a way the eye test wasn’t nodding agreement – and the overall stats showed a nice completion rate with an exceptional YPA to boot. Tons of legit fodder for the “why the hell isn’t this guy playing?!” angle.
I think jcdawg83 below encapsulates it well.
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I think the Peach Bowl was the classic example of what JT was. He threw for a lot of yards and not many points and had quite a few bad overthrows and throws that would have been critical ints if not dropped by the defensive back. He had 1 td and 1 int and a critical fumble. JT had the mobility of an oak tree and presented absolutely no running threat to any defense. After that game, I was very concerned about the qb position for the 2021 season.
JT was a stronger pure passer than Stetson but that was really his only advantage.
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Stetson won a natty. Who cares what the media thinks? End of story.
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Yesssirreee, Dawg!
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