Want to attack every day with the latest Georgia football recruiting info? That’s the Intel. This entry is about the latest Friday night feat from 2022 Georgia QB commitment Gunner Stockton.
=============================================================
No high school football player in the state of Georgia had ever been a part of 218 career touchdowns before. That was until Gainesville High legend Deshaun Watson did so in 2013.
Nobody had ever been a part of 219 career touchdowns before. Not until Gunner Stockton did just that on Friday night.
That is pretty rare air for any high school quarterback.
The class anchor QB commit for Georgia’s 2022 recruiting class smashed that record on Friday night. That feat came in the first half of the seventh game of his senior season.
Rabun County won 45-14 against Grovetown and Stockton led the way by throwing for five touchdown passes and also rushing for the first score of the ballgame.
The four-year starter pushed his total touchdown responsibility number to 221 for his career. And climbing.
Stockton has now thrown for 30 touchdowns with just one interception this season. With the win, his Wildcats improved to 6-1 for the season. He also has seven rushing touchdowns so far in 2021.
He completed 24 of his 35 attempts for 327 yards with nine carries for 51 yards on the ground.
Stockton, as humble as his Northeast Georgia mountain roots, has been humbled by all this record chasing for some time now.
“It has been going good,” Stockton said on Sept. 29. “We will have a good game on Friday. You just can’t beat playing every Friday with your buddies you grew up with.”
When the 6-foot-1, 215-pound senior set the record on Friday evening, he was pretty taken aback. Everyone began to tell him about the names that he was not associated with when it comes to Georgia high school football history.
“It was pretty awesome,” Stockton said. “Just to see those guys is surreal.”
Deshaun Watson now has to move aside in the record books for a young man named after his Grandfather that likes to raise his own cattle in his spare time. Stockton loves the series “Yellowstone” and those who have heard him sing would say that he’s got a good country song to his voice.
“Just to be named with the guys on that list is surreal,” Stockton said.
Jaybo Shaw, the head coach at Rabun County, has been his head coach for all these record-stacking seasons.
There have been many times when it has clearly looked like Shaw has told Stockton that he is not allowed to run the ball for easy yards against certain opponents.
“So proud and happy for him,” Shaw told DawgNation on Friday night. “The journey we have had together has been special. Very thankful that I am on this ride with him. He works extremely hard during the week and continues to have great pride in his preparation.”
Stockton’s six touchdown night against Grovetown on Friday night marked the eighth time he’d done that in a ballgame during his storied high school career.
Chasing Deshaun: How Gunner Stockton has piled up 221 touchdowns
Want to know how a young man from Rabun County stacks up 221 career touchdowns for his career?
Just look at these crazy touchdown nights for his career stat line found on MaxPreps.com. The number of times in which Stockton has now passed or throw for:
- 5 touchdowns or more in a game: 25
- 6 touchdowns or more in a game: 19
- 7 touchdowns or more in a game: 11
- 8 touchdowns in a game: 3
Oddly enough, the last time that Stockton didn’t score a touchdown in a game was his first career start. That came way back on August 18, 2018.
Want to know the best part about all of this? Shaw said his offensive coordinator Michael Davis asked Stockton earlier this year if he had any idea how much history he’d produced for Rabun County.
Did he know how many 300-yard passing games he’d had? How many 400-yard games? Or how many nights where he scored six or seven touchdowns?
“When his offensive coordinator asked him all those things, his answer was always that he had no idea,” Shaw said. “That’s just Gunner. That’s not the kind of thing he pays a lot of attention to.”
These massive stat lines do all seem to run together. Perhaps it is easier to look at it all this way: Stockton has produced at least three touchdowns in 38 of the 47 games he’s played for Rabun County.
A deeper scan of all those big games shows that five of the nine instances, where he did not run or throw for at least three touchdowns in a game, came back during his freshman year in 2018.
Gunner Stockton: More Rabun County record chasing to come?
His career touchdown tally now breaks down to this:
- 152 passing touchdowns (3rd all-time in Georgia High School Association history)
- 69 rushing touchdowns
It stands within reason to expect more history on the way for Stockton and the Rabun County program.
Consider the following:
- Stockton is now just 10 touchdown passes shy of breaking the all-time Georgia state record for career passing touchdowns set by Trevor Lawrence in 2017.
- He currently slots in at fifth all-time in career passing yards in state history. Stockton’s 11,724 career passing yards are also pacing to break another state record set by Lawrence. The former Clemson great and 2021 No. 1 overall pick threw for 13,902 yards for his career.
- Stockton has averaged 249 passing yards per game for his career. Yet his average per game for this season has soared to 315 yards per contest. If he maintains his current pace, he could get to within 1,233 yards of Lawrence by the end of the regular season.
- How closely he challenges that all-time mark set by Lawrence will hinge on a deep playoff run for the Wildcats. Rabun County (6-1) is currently ranked as the No. 1 team in Class 2A and this year’s team is led by a core of approximately 23 seniors. Stockton has said that this year’s team has been concluding weight room workouts with a breakdown calling for a state championship since they were all in the sixth grade.
- If Rabun County advanced to at least the quarterfinals of the GHSA Class 2A state playoff bracket this season, that would give Stockton six more games in 2020. The quick math of 315 yards per game for another six games will add 1,890 yards to his career passing mark. That would give Stockton 13,614 passing yards for his career. He has three previous games of 400-plus passing yards for his career. If he puts up another one of those, then that moves him even closer into Lawrence territory.
- He currently only trails the following Georgia high school football greats in terms of career passing yards: Cartersville’s Trevor Lawrence (13,902); Gainesville’s Deshaun Watson (13,077); Houston County’s Jake Fromm (12,745) and Marietta’s Harrison Bailey (12,119)
- It looks very likely that Stockton will be at least third all-time in GHSA career passing yards by the end of the 2021 regular season.
- This will seem like an odd thing to mention for a quarterback, but Stockton is also only 10 rushing touchdowns away from moving into 20th place in Georgia high school football history in career rushing touchdowns.
- Dual-threat ‘Dawg? Stockton does have the foot speed to escape pressure and to move the chains at the next level. He won’t be Michael Vick or anything, but we’ve now seen him rush for at least 100 yards in a game 17 different times in his career. He’s been timed electronically at 4.7 seconds in high school in the 40-yard dash.
- Watson also holds the Georgia state record for total offense in a career with 17,156 career yards via passing (13,077), rushing (4,057) and receiving (22) for his career. Stockton’s work on Friday night now gives him a total of 15,647 yards of total offense during his time at Rabun County. He could very well close down on that mark over the next four to five games, too.
In order to try and make this post as comprehensive as possible, we will also note the all-time national record for combined passing and rushing touchdowns is not maintained by the National Federation of High School Associations.
We were able to verify that the national leader for career passing touchdowns finished with 229. California schoolboy legend Jake Browning was only able to add another 13 touchdowns on the ground for a career mark of 242 career touchdowns.
Ohio legend Maty Mauk is also found on MaxPreps.com to have thrown for 219 career passing touchdowns and he also added another 59 touchdowns with his legs. That was good for an astounding 278 career touchdowns.
SENTELL'S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on DawgNation.com)
- 5-star do-it-all defender Shemar Stewart recaps another “great” trip to UGA
- Luther Burden III: A 5-star’s burden that goes beyond choosing to commit to Georgia or Mizzou
- Mykell Williams: What the 5-star DL thought on his front-row VIP treatment at UGA
- Big Bear Alexander: Why the 5-star DT “couldn’t have been more fired up” to be in Athens
- Nation’s No. 1 overall prospect Travis Hunter is a surprise visitor at Arkansas
- Cooper Manning weighs in on Georgia’s recruitment of his 5-star son Arch Manning
- Elite 2023 cornerback prospect Kayin Lee has made his college decision
- Christen Miller: Georgia has really moved the needle of late with the All-American DT
- Luther Burden: The nation’s No. 2 WR on two upcoming visits and a rescheduled commitment day
- WATCH: Top 100 OT prospect Johnathan “Bo” Hughley breaks down why he committed to UGA
- 5-star DT prospect Big Bear Alexander moves from Texas to play his senior season at IMG Academy
- WATCH: Georgia 2023 TE commitment Pearce Spurlin III goes off in 318-yard, 5-TD night
- 5-star junior cornerback AJ Harris has a final 7 with a commitment date in mind
- Priority TE target Oscar Delp breaks down his first game visit as a UGA recruit
- PHOTOS: The priority recruits on hand to see Georgia’s win against South Carolina
- WATCH: CJ Madden breaks down why he chose to play for the Bulldogs
- BREAKING: Carlton Madden Jr. commits to play for Georgia
- 5-star QB Arch Manning headlines a stout list of South Carolina visitors
- Why Kelee Ringo’s first college INT meant so much to his mother Tralee Hale
