ATHENS — Gunner Stockton stepped in for Georgia quarterback Carson Beck in the SEC Championship game.
On short notice against the No. 1 defense in the country in terms of yards per play allowed, Stockton came in and led Georgia to victory.
With Beck now dealing with a UCL injury on his throwing arm— a ligament in the elbow — Stockton may once again be asked to lead Georgia’s offense. Beck’s status for the Sugar Bowl is still unknown based upon the severity of his injury.
Georgia had done its best to have Stockton prepared to play at a moment’s notice as the team’s backup.
Now it will have to potentially do so in earnest ahead of Georgia’s next game.
“I certainly think there’s no good script, right, for losing a quarterback or having to go to your backup,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said on Sunday. “There’s not a great script for it. It certainly wasn’t a great script last night to have to do it against the number one team in the country on defense, and to have to do that at halftime was tough.
“But this situation does give you time if that’s what has to happen. I mean, there is time there. But, I mean, experience is so valuable, and you can’t really get experience in this amount of time. I wish he’d gotten more game experience up to this point in time.”
The next start Stockton makes for Georgia will be his first. He’s now played in four games this season for Georgia, throwing for 206 yards while completing 25 of his 32 attempts.
In the SEC Championship game, Stockton completed 12 of his 16 pass attempts for 71 yards. He did have a costly interception that set-up Texas’ game-tying drive.
But he also made key plays with his legs in overtime, including an 8-yard run to set up Georgia’s winning-touchdown. Stockton is far more likely to use and lean on his legs and Georgia knows it can build that into the offense.
“I think his strengths are somewhat different than Carson’s, obviously, but we’ve known that,” Smart said. “We don’t think we have to change much in terms of that. He does give us the capability of doing some different things with his athleticism, and I thought Mike and those guys did a good job using that. The team has a lot of confidence in Gunner. He’s very smart, very intelligent. So I don’t know that it’s a lot of change. It’s probably more picking the volume correctly in terms of not having everything that we have with Carson, but having things that fit Gunner.”
Following the win over Texas, teammates noted that there was a belief that Stockton could come in and operate the offense.
The team also knew it would have to do more to support Stockton. Consider that Georgia had -2 rushing yards at halftime of the game. The Bulldogs finished with 141 rushing yards on the evening, which allowed Georgia to shorten the game and control the pace.
“I think Gunner did a great job stepping up like he had to. Him coming in the game, I think it made everybody realize this is a new juice we got to come out in the second half with,” offensive lineman Tate Ratledge said. “I think everybody did a great job with that.”
Even in sitting behind Beck for the last two seasons, Stockton has been preparing to be Georgia’s starting quarterback.
Teammates took notice of that. And it’s why Stockton was able to deliver Georgia an SEC Championship.
Now, he may be asked to help Georgia win a national championship if the injury is serious enough.
“Man, just how confident he was,” Trevor Etienne said of Stockton. “You know, just shows the preparation. It goes to show, like, when he’s taking reps, mental reps, you know, he’s locked in, he’s paying attention, and that speaks volumes about him because he’s not QB1, he could be down, but instead he takes advantage of the opportunities that he gets. And I’m just glad that he was able to come out and help us get the win tonight.”
Stockton would not be the first backup quarterback in recent years to lead a team to a national title. Cardale Jones did so for Ohio State back in 2014 after he replaced JT Barrett starting in the conference championship game. Tua Tagovailoa replaced Jalen Hurts at halftime of the 2018 National Championship Game against Georgia and led the Crimson Tide to a national title.
Time will tell if Stockton has the opportunity and ability to do the same for Georgia.
“You know, he comes in, works hard every day. You know, he’s probably played this moment 1,000 times at practice,” Etienne said. “Just tonight he was able to show the world what he can do. I’m just proud of him, super proud.”
