Trent Dilfer envisions NFL future for Georgia QB Stetson Bennett

With each passing day we learn more and more about how much Stetson Bennett IV impressed those who heavily consume College Football. Quite a few high-profile evaluators and guru’s have expressed strong, positive opinions on the former walk-on since he helped Georgia thrash Oregon 49-3 in the season-opener.

Super Bowl-winning quarterback and former ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer can now be added to that list. Dilfer is now a head coach at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, Tennessee and he does a lot of work, in a coaching capacity, with the Elite 11 quarterback competition.

In a recent appearance on the Ryen Russillo podcast, Dilfer pointed to Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud as his top two college quarterback prospects. He also said that he believes that Bennett has an NFL future.

“He’s awesome. Yeah, he’s awesome. Stetson Bennett is Chase Daniel…,” Dilfer said. “…Stetson is twitchier. I’m not saying it can’t work but I think he’ll be drafted as a backup. Now he might be able to earn it. He’s got some (Tony) Romo in him. Romo, again, thicker, a little bit taller. But who’s to say that Stetson can’t get bigger and thicker, too.

“I’ll say this, I’ve never been… When we had Stetson at Elite11, we did have him. Joey told me this the other day, I think we had him at 27 or 28. Like he wasn’t chopped liver. He was one of the better quarterbacks in the country. There were just things, in fact everybody remembers that his hat was on backwards. Everybody remembers him because he was electric. He’s a really good football player. I just know how this NFL thing will work. Because he’s not Bryce (Young), right? They’ll be the same size and Bryce will go in the top five and Stetson will go back half of the second or early third will be my guess.”

The comparison to Daniel is an interesting one. Daniel was a two-time Heisman Trophy finalist at Missouri in 2007 and 2008 while throwing for over 12,000 yards in his college career. He signed as an undrafted free agent with Washington and has since put together a 13-year NFL career, primarily as a backup. He’s currently the No. 2 quarterback for the Los Angeles Chargers, his eighth NFL franchise.

Stetson Bennett completed 25 of 31 passes against Oregon for a career-high 368 yards and two touchdowns. He also reached the end zone on the ground from one yard out.

He came into the season having earned offensive MVP in both of Georgia’s College Football Playoff matchups vs. Michigan and Alabama. Two fourth-quarter touchdown tosses against The Crimson Tide in the National Championship game helped Georgia to it’s first National Championship since 1980.

Bennett did that despite that fact that many were clamoring for a quarterback change going into the playoff. After throwing for over 300 yards, three touchdowns, and two costly interceptions against Alabama in the SEC Championship game, quite a few fans and analysts felt it was time for J.T. Daniels to get a shot. Kirby Smart told reporters earlier this week that a change was never really under consideration.

“You guys don’t see every single practice, every single rep that led up to the Alabama game and all the reps from South Carolina to the time he played UAB all the way through — there’s a million things you don’t see against a pretty good defense, against a pretty elite defense,” Smart said. “So there was enough of that to convince me that we were going with the right guy. For who we were and who needed to be, he gave us the best chance to win. And it didn’t take a lot of conviction to stick to that. It doesn’t really matter what people say outside of our organization. It matters what we think in it. And we had conviction on that.”