Georgia made a statement on Saturday in its 49-3 win over Oregon.
And the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback made a statement, too.
Once heavily maligned by analysts and fans alike, Stetson Bennett led Georgia to a national championship a year ago, and on Saturday he looked like a legitimate Heisman candidate.
The former walk-on completed 25-of-31 passes for 368 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no interceptions in the blowout victory.
And his performance left a huge impression on ESPN college football analyst Jesse Palmer.
“It’s the best I’ve ever seen him play,” said Palmer of Bennett on ESPN’s College Football Final. “I mean, he looks like a 24-yer-old playing a sixth year of college football.”
“He was in total control of Todd Monken’s offense; he knew exactly what to do with the ball,” added Palmer. “The biggest knock on him through his career is at times he’s cavalier and he turns it over in big games. In this one against Oregon, when guys where open he took shots down field. When they weren’t, he checked it down; he threw it away.
“His ability to escape has always been the X factor for him, but he is surrounded by so much NFL talent at the skill (positions), when he’s playing this efficiently, this offense is unstoppable. He was in the game for seven drives; they had seven touchdowns. That was the best their offense ha looked to me in a long time. Better than at any point we saw last season under Stetson Bennett.”
You can see all of Palmer’s comments about Georgia and Bennett, as well as other big games from Saturday, in the video below:
"Chris Wallace covers college football for Saturday Down South. He has covered college athletics for multiple newspapers and also worked previously for Rivals.com and GolfChannel.com."
