stetson bennett georgia football

ATHENS — The phone started ringing and the text messages started streaming in around noon on Friday.

Stetson Bennett knows he’s a popular guy, but it didn’t take the Georgia quarterback long to figure out something was amiss, and that something was that his phone number had been put on blast.

“Probably 600 or 700 calls, texts, everything,” Bennett said. “I figured out a way to hide them all so they wouldn’t show up.”

Bennett showed up early and often in leading Georgia to the 27-13 win over Tennessee in a key SEC showdown on Dooley Field in Sanford Stadium.

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SEC passion is one thing on the football field, but such high jinks can be both annoying and distracting for college athletes focused on preparing for a high stakes showdown.

“I wouldn’t say motivation,” Bennett said after outplaying Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker in a battle of No. 1 teams, “but there was probably something there.”

Bennett let his tormentors know they had contributed to his efforts after scoring the first touchdown of the game on a 13-yard scramble in the first half.

“It was a pass play, and Kenny (McIntosh) stepped up and protected pretty well,” said Bennett, who was facing a third-and-10 and didn’t appear to have many options. “I ran”

And Bennett juked and dodged and leaped forward toward the pylon, being ruled to have scored after the officials reviewed the play.

Bennett’s next scoring effort was much easier, as he lofted a 37-yard pass to a wide-open Ladd McConkey at the 3:32 mark of the first quarter to make it 14-3.

Georgia’s third and final touchdown came when Bennett went through his progressions and found Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint in the back of the end zone for a 5-yard TD strike that made the score 21-3.

The teams traded a field goal before the half, leaving the Bulldogs up 24-6 and in complete control.

Bennett was 15-of-21 passing for 226 yards at that point, the Bulldogs having rolled up 306 total yards to Tennessee’s 139.

When the rains came in the second half, ball control became the priority, and Bennett attempted just four more passes the remainder of the afternoon, completing two of them for another 31 yards.

“When the rain started coming, we said, ‘alright, we’ll slow it down a little bit and give our defense time to rest and chew up the clock,’ " Bennett said.

“The first drive of the second half was my favorite drive of the year, even though it ended up as a field goal,” he said. “It was like 14 plays. I thought it was awesome.”

Georgia used 15 plays to drive 67 yards, setting up Jack Podlesny’s second and final field goal of the day, UGA taking a 27-6 lead with 1:09 left in the third quarter.

Coach Kirby Smart was proud of Bennett’s performance.

It wasn’t perfect, the head coach noted, but it was savvy.

“I thought our quarterback played really good, he played within the system,” Smart said. “He’s a winner. Let’s be honest, the guy wins, the guy knows how to play the game, he understands what people are doing.”

Indeed, and it was Bennett who got the last laugh on the phone number pranksters.