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Know Your Foe: Florida gets another crack at Stetson Bennett

Untitled designby:Nick de la Torre•10/26/22•

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In just a few days’ time, the banks of the St. Johns River will be flooded with orange and blue, red and black clad fans. It’s Florida-Georgia week, one unlike any in more than 30 years.

The No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs and Florida Gators will meet at TIAA Bank Field on Saturday and for the first time since 1981, Georgia will come into the game as the defending National Champions.

This will be the 100th meeting between the two schools, or 101st if you ask Georgia. Both teams had open weeks to prepare for the rivalry game but they come into this weekend on different paths. Florida is 4-3 and just 1-3 in the conference.

This week the Gators will get another crack at Stetson Bennett. Georgia’s starting quarterback hasn’t enjoyed much personal success over Florida. The 24-year-old grad student is just 15-35 (42.9%) for two touchdowns and three interceptions against UF. He has, however, led Georgia to nine consecutive wins, including a National Championship.

Can the Gators stop Bennett, and Georgia, this week?

What’s been up with the slow starts for Stetson Bennett? He’s third in the league in passing but seems to take a while to get going.

Palmer Thombs: We spoke to Stetson Bennett on Monday ahead of Georgia playing Florida, and he shared with us a little bit on what we already knew: Bennett has been banged up in some of those slow starts. He was hit hard in the Missouri game. That lingered with him into Auburn week.

If you look at it, those really were the games that the slow starts for Stetson that were the most apparent. He got things rolling early on in the season – Oregon, Samford, and South Carolina. Things really weren’t all too different against Kent State – albeit it didn’t show up on the scoreboard because of red zone woes that have plagued Georgia at times. However, against Missouri and Auburn, it did take the run game having a good day for Georgia to get things going and to open things up a little bit for Stetson in the passing game. He made the throws when needed against Missouri. Same goes for Auburn. And then, versus Vanderbilt, Georgia’s most recent game, the slow start problem was gone as Bennett completed 15 of his first 16 including 14 in a row.

Well, not coincidentally, that’s when his shoulder wasn’t bothering him. Stetson said on Monday that the bye week was great for his health, so a slow start doesn’t seem to be on the horizon for him this week by that token.

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