Gunner Stockton, in a red Georgia jersey, winds up to throw a pass.
Georgia tried to recruit over Gunner Stockton, but he enters Saturday having put the Bulldogs in Playoff position.
Do you want to share your predictions, analysis or thoughts on Saturday’s Notre Dame-Pitt or Texas-Georgia games? Get involved with our coverage at live@theathletic.com.
Kirby Smart tried hard. He did his best to recruit Arch Manning, who visited the Georgia campus four times. Manning took in a game, practices and meetings. He saw plenty of what life in Athens would have been like.
“He came over here a lot,” Smart said.
“I was considering them to the end,” Manning said.
But at the end of one of the closest-watched recruitments in recent times, Manning chose Texas. And this Saturday, he returns to Athens in his much-hyped first season as the starter — which isn’t going as well as the quarterback Smart ended up with this year: Gunner Stockton, who Georgia tried to recruit over late last year, who critics like the SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum said would hold Georgia back.
Such is the overarching story of the quarterback position during Smart’s 10-year tenure: He goes after five-stars and experienced transfers, and often gets them. Then he wins with less-heralded guys.
Smart has signed four five-star quarterbacks (Jacob Eason, Justin Fields, Brock Vandagriff, and JT Daniels after a transfer), had a commitment from another (Dylan Raiola), and now has another (Jared Curtis) for 2026. Smart also had a commitment for one day from Jayden Maiava, now USC’s starting quarterback. Fernando Mendoza, now a Heisman front-runner, visited Georgia last December, then opted for Indiana, where his brother is on the team and he had a clear starting spot.
So Georgia rolled with Stockton, and the offense, somewhat surprisingly, is rolling. Another happy accident in the making for Georgia, a program that won two national titles with a former walk-on, and played for another national championship with a QB overshadowed by five-stars who came to Georgia in the classes before and after him.
A summation of the eras of Georgia QBs, which at times even Bulldog fans wanted to call errors, but usually worked out anyway:
Jake Fromm went 35-7 as Kirby Smart’s starting QB.Streeter Lecka / Getty Images
Eason was already committed when Georgia hired Smart. But with Mark Richt’s firing, other programs swooped in, especially Florida, and Smart flew from his introductory news conference to re-recruit Eason. He succeeded.
But for the next year, Smart also had his eye on another quarterback he knew well. Jake Fromm had been committed to Alabama, but Smart flipped him. Fromm was by no means unknown. He was the 44th-ranked player in the 2017 class and the fourth-ranked quarterback. But he was expected to sit behind Eason, who started all but one game as a true freshman. (Greyson Lambert started the opener before Smart went to Eason.)
Early in the 2017 season opener, Eason hyperextended his knee. Fromm stepped in and kept winning such that even when Eason got healthy, it was impossible for Smart to make a change. Fromm would have won a national title if not for second-and-26. Eason transferred home to Washington.
Smart didn’t sit idly, though, signing Fields, one of the top players in the 2018 class. But Fromm held him off with a strong 2018 season, and Fields left after one year for the guaranteed starting spot at Ohio State. There are still critics who say Georgia made the wrong decision, but ultimately, Fromm went 35-7 as a starter, including an SEC championship and three SEC East titles.
When Fromm turned pro after the 2019 season, Smart already had a quarterback on the roster who would be even more successful. But hardly anybody — including Smart — could have predicted it.
There was a scramble for Georgia to sign a big-name quarterback before 2019 signing day. It was a finalist for C.J. Stroud, but he opted for Ohio State. Georgia also tried for Dillon Gabriel, with then-quarterbacks coach James Coley making two trips to Hawaii. Gabriel chose UCF and a quicker path to playing time.
On the morning of signing day, Georgia pulled a surprise flip of three-star D’Wan Mathis from Michigan State. That night, it pulled another surprise bringing back former walk-on Bennett, who had gone to junior college for a year.
Before the 2020 season, Smart brought in two transfers: Jamie Newman from Wake Forest and Daniels from Southern California. Newman, in line to start, opted out. Daniels’ knee wasn’t game-ready. The Bulldogs turned to Mathis in the season opener … and he didn’t make it to halftime.
Bennett impressed for a while, but then it seemed — seemed — he hit a ceiling. Daniels was inserted as the starter, won the final four games of the season, and went into 2021 as the starter. He went to SEC media days, and Bennett wasn’t even getting second-team reps in practice. Offensive coordinator Todd Monken told Bennett he didn’t see him as a starter.
Then came the famous UAB game week: Daniels was hurt after the opener, Carson Beck was given a shot in practice, but struggled, and Monken put Bennett in. Things proceeded from there. Bennett became a legend.
Smart and the offensive coaches may have needed to be won over. But Georgia defensive players tended to be believers: Davin Bellamy, a linebacker on the 2017 team, was so impressed with what Bennett did in scout team work that he told Bennett he should transfer somewhere he could play. When Bennett was a backup in 2019, cornerback Eric Stokes called Bennett a “once in a lifetime quarterback.”
Smart would acknowledge later he had been proven wrong — happily so. But it didn’t stop his philosophy on recruiting quarterbacks.
This began as the smoothest quarterback transition of the Smart era. But of course, the exit was not.
Beck served as Bennett’s backup during the 2022 season, seeing action in blowouts, and took over as the heir apparent. He had a great first season as the starter, enough that there was talk about turning pro. He came back, and had a more uneven 2024 — then got hurt at the end of the first half of the SEC championship.
The Stockton era — much like the Fromm era — began because of an in-game injury.
Stockton, also like Fromm, was not unheralded. He was briefly a five-star recruit, settling in as a four-star in the 2022 class, the seventh-best quarterback per the 247Sports Composite, and No. 124 overall recruit.
But Georgia kept trying for others. There was the chase for Manning, but when they didn’t get him, the Bulldogs opted not to sign a quarterback in the 2023 class, in part because they thought they had two for the 2024 class: Raiola and four-star Ryan Puglisi. When Raiola bailed a week before signing day, they brought in Jaden Rashada, the vagabond quarterback who had starting experience at Arizona State.
Arch Manning attended a Georgia game in September 2021 as part of his recruiting process.Todd Kirkland / Getty Images
But Rashada lasted only one semester at Georgia, transferring without taking a snap, and is now at Sacramento State.
Stockton, meanwhile, has continued to improve this season. His solid-but-not-great numbers — sixth in the SEC in QB rating, eighth in yards per attempt — don’t tell the story. He has led a Georgia offense that won shootouts against Tennessee and Ole Miss. He’s been largely mistake-free, with only three turnovers, and has taken 11 sacks, the second-least in the SEC.
“He has brought toughness, he has brought wisdom, he has brought consistency,” Smart said. “He has avoided catastrophic things like turnovers and he’s made plays with his legs, and he has made plays with his arm.”
And he could make a run to the national championship. Then he will have to compete with another five-star.
2026 and beyond
Curtis is one of the top overall recruits in the country. Tall, a live arm, and athletic. He’s committed to Georgia.
It was pointed out to Smart this week that he has recruited all types of quarterbacks. Does he have any core traits he wants in a QB, or is this the position he just looks for the best available player?
“I think the best player available every cycle does have core qualities or core characteristics. If you’re going to be a quarterback, you’ve got to be a leader,” Smart said. “It’s 80-90 percent between the ears, and I think people get enamored with physical traits. How big is he? How tall is he? What does he run? How far does he throw the ball? How fast does he run? A lot of those things, they matter, but they don’t matter as much as what does he do when there’s a guy free running at him? What does he do when the shot clock’s got three seconds left and he has to make a decision on which way to slide the protection?”
But a lot of those qualities, Smart added, can only be measured when the quarterback arrives on campus, and coaches see how he reacts in practice and game situations. That may partially explain how unpredictable it’s been over the last decade, beyond injuries.
The history may show how Smart chased stars and stumbled into success. But there’s more nuance to it, he said.
“We don’t have a cookie cutter, like this is what we’re going after. We want to go after people that can lead our team,” Smart said. “They’re going to be the face of your organization, so you want to go after the right kind of person.”
Be the first to comment