georgia quarterback stetson bennett todd monken

Todd Monken and Stetson Bennett both said the quiet part out loud when discussing the latter on Tuesday.

For Monken, he went on a mini-rant of sorts defending the play of Bennett. The Georgia offensive coordinator acknowledged Bennett has to do a better job of protecting the football. But then again, so does every quarterback.

Monken once again stated that Bennett gives Georgia the best chance to win, something Kirby Smart has said time and time again.

“If you look at the plays he’s made, he’s made national championship-winning plays,” Monken said of Bennett. “He has, you just turn on the film and look at some of the throws he makes. Some of the decisions he makes, the things he does with his feet. There’s no doubt in my mind we can win the national championship and there’s no doubt we can win it with Stetson Bennett. We went into the (SEC) championship game as a favorite, as a favorite, over a team that hasn’t been an underdog in five years. That ought to tell you a lot about our quarterback and how he played.”

Bennett was a key reason Georgia got off to a 12-0 start this season. He’s thrown 24 touchdowns passes while completing 64 percent of his passes. His mobility, while nothing like that of Lamar Jackson, has been an asset to the Georgia offense.

He’s also been available to play in every game, which hasn’t been true for JT Daniels as he has battled multiple injuries throughout the year.

Daniels also didn’t arrive in Miami until Monday after a recent bout with COVID. Yet there’s still a strong push to see Daniels on the field. And Monken thinks he knows partially why that’s the case.

“(For) Some reason, we get into this stereotyping of players based on where they were at some point,” Monken said. “Be it one was a walk-on, one was a 5-star, Just look at the production and what he’s (Bennett) done for our football team, it’s impressive.”

Daniels was the 5-star quarterback as a high school prospect. Bennett was the walk-on. Never mind that Bennett was a high school senior at the same time as Jake Fromm and Daniels signed with USC the same year the Bulldogs landed Justin Fields.

Bennett’s long-ago recruiting ranking fuels some of the negative chatter around him. This season, the only real shortcoming Bennett has displayed has been that he couldn’t beat Alabama. That’s something Fromm and Aaron Murray couldn’t do either.

The Georgia quarterback tries his best to block out the negative attention — Bennett actually owns a flip phone, making it more difficult to check Twitter and Instagram — but you could sense his frustration with discussions about his abilities when he spoke to reporters.

“You can’t put any value on people who really have no clue what they’re talking about talking,” Bennett said. “I wouldn’t listen to myself if I was giving a speech on heart surgery. Not comparing football to heart surgery, but it’s the same kind of gist. So why would I listen to somebody who doesn’t do this for a living and just watches it happen. It really doesn’t bother me. It’s a bit frustrating sometimes, I guess, but like I said, I don’t have social media, so I don’t wallow in it.”

Even Bennett’s teammates are aware of the excessive negativity around the Georgia quarterback.

“We just centered around him and let him know he’s not in this alone even though he was receiving a lot of bad talk about him,” wide receiver Kearis Jackson said. “Since that loss not only him but the whole team has took a step forward to try to get better. You win some, you lose some but you live to fight another day.”

Bennett is expected to once again start for Georgia when it takes on Michigan. Daniels should be available to play, but Bennett will still likely be the quarterback throwing the first pass attempt of the game.

And in the event the Bulldogs beat Michigan — as they are currently favored to do so — Bennett can then earn another chance to beat Alabama and prove many people wrong. Like he already has of Monken.

“I think Stetson at times -- I’m talking about me, have probably undervalued his skill set,” Monken said. “We’ve tried to elevate guys that have talent on our roster, and we do that at every position, and some guys just combat that and fight and scratch and continue to play well and try to prove you wrong, and that’s what Stetson Bennett did.”

Stetson Bennett previews Georgia football game against Michigan

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