It’ll be impossible to make the sequel feel quite like the original. With the exception of “D2: The Mighty Ducks” and “Home Alone: Lost in New York,” the sequel is almost always a letdown.

The only way in which Stetson Bennett’s sequel joins that elite company after his made-for-Hollywood debut (sort of) is if he delivers an All-SEC season while repeating as national champs. And even that might not be possible. There’s a reason why there’s been 1 Heisman Trophy repeat champ in the 86-year history of the award. A new standard is set. The bar is higher. The margin for error is slimmer.

Bennett’s encore is one of the more intriguing storylines of the 2022 season. Many are bracing for the worst as if Bennett was only being propped up by a generational defense, and that having a perfect 4th quarter to come back against Nick Saban in a national championship meant nothing.

Conflicted? Yeah.

But as I like to say, 2 things can be true at the same time with Bennett’s 2022 outlook.

One is that he absolutely deserves to be Kirby Smart’s unquestioned starter going into 2022. Even if there existed a world in which Carson Beck or Brock Vandagriff could drop out of school and go play in the USFL, win a title and take home MVP honors, I’d probably say “well, did they end the 1980 jokes?” Bennett did.

If you’re of the belief that Bennett is in a true quarterback battle, you didn’t see the writing on the wall that JT Daniels did. It was Daniels who represented Georgia at SEC Media Days and was tabbed as UGA’s unquestioned starter until another injury opened the door back up for Bennett. And say what you want about Daniels’ potential, but he doesn’t lack awareness. Nothing he could do could supplant Bennett after making history, even as someone who had an excellent 4-game stretch to end 2020. That’s why Daniels bounced.

Now imagine convincing yourself that Vandagriff, Beck or a true freshman like Gunner Stockton could actually win the job out of camp. Barring an injury or Bennett’s post-championship bender (a much-earned bender) continuing into fall camp, The Mailman will get an opening day start for the first time in his career.

So then what’s the other thing that can be true at the same time?

Smart can’t be afraid to bench Bennett in season just because of that remarkable feat on his résumé.

Wait, what? Didn’t I just advocate for Bennett to have a path paved to a starting job? Yes. Thanks for noticing.

There’s a difference between earning an opportunity vs. having an opportunity in perpetuity. That’s where this gets complicated.

Bennett is not 1 bad game from losing his starting job. He’s certainly 1 bad game from hearing that chatter (probably more like 1 bad half). But this isn’t like D’Wan Mathis starting 8-for-17 for 55 yards in a brutal first half against Arkansas. Mathis had never shown he could actually dig out of that situation, and if Smart didn’t make a change, it was in jeopardy of losing a season-opening game to an Arkansas team who had gone over 1,000 days without an SEC win.

If Bennett loses his starting job for on-field reasons, it’ll be because he strung together several poor performances and someone else in that quarterback room made up the necessary ground in practice. It’ll be because the offense was in need of help and this time, he didn’t really seem to have the answers.

When Bennett started the national championship about as bad as one could, he had the answers. When his team was without a touchdown late in the first half against Florida, he had the answers.

Bennett hasn’t always had second-half rallies — the SEC Championship game was far from that — but within a game, he showed in 2021 that he could settle in and make the right plays.

Maybe it would take Georgia already having that first loss on the board for Smart to actually make a mid-game move. To be clear, that would be something like Georgia trending in the wrong direction in the meat of SEC play, losing to Florida because of a poor offensive performance and then getting off to a slow start the following week against Tennessee. That’s not totally impossible. Struggling like that against those rivals is extremely rare in the Smart era.

If Bennett and the words “regressed” are being used in November, Smart must recognize if the offense is no longer running like it once did with Bennett.

Imagine being Nick Saban at halftime in the national championship at the end of the 2017 season. Jalen Hurts was crowned SEC Offensive Player of the Year as a true freshman just a season earlier. Yet Saban could see, in a season-defining moment, that Hurts wasn’t going to take that 2017 Alabama team where it wanted to go. Never mind the fact that he was a Hunter Renfrow touchdown short of winning a national title as a true freshman. Never mind the fact that Saban clearly developed a connection to Hurts that was unlike few he had ever coached.

The same will be true of Smart with Bennett. It was Bennett who saved Smart from decades of offhanded remarks and instead delivered him the ultimate achievement at his alma mater. For some, that might be a job guaranteed in perpetuity. At a program without annual national title aspirations, perhaps that would be the case.

Smart doesn’t live in that world. He lives in a world that demands he constantly evaluate personnel based on what gives him the best chance to win a title. In 2021, he correctly decided that was Bennett. Maybe that’ll be the case again in 2022.

Either way, we’ll all be ready for the encore.